Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Special General Strike Issue. September 24 1979

[Introduction]

The Labour Party came out in favour of the strike. Rowling called it "an historic occasion," mindful perhaps of the fact that history has plagued the Labour Party's role in the 1951 lockout dispute. On that occasion, then Opposition leader Walter Nash pursued an infamous policy of "neither for nor against," and did his party a lot of harm.

For September 20, Labour politicians gave more than verbal support: they boycotted Bellamy's. With their own private food supply brought in the day before, they presumably huddled in the Beehive corridors giving a clenched fist salute every time a Cabinet minister tottered drunkenly out of the Bellamy's doors.

Bill Rowling refused to move into his new quarters on the day. A worthy gesture, underscored symbolically (he must have hoped) by the fact that the new rooms were the ones previously occupied by the Prime Minister before his shift to the Beehive. The question still remains though, of just what Labour would do in the Government's position.

Nothing in its policies or past record gives the faintest suggestion that it would follow anything other than the same "restructuring" policies of National. The labour movement might not stage a general strike against a Labour Government, and that would appear to be the only significant difference between the two parties.

The response to the FoL call was overwhelming in the industrial areas. Factories, ports, buses, trains and aeroplanes all went out in decisive numbers. Most pubs closed, entertainment was cancelled and no newspapers appeared. Most shops opened, as did the banks and many small businesses. However, the vast majority of shops had the management and/or a small number of non-striking workers serving behind the counter.