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Up from the Underworld - Coalminers and Community in Wonthaggi 1909-1968 (Paperback, New)
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Up from the Underworld - Coalminers and Community in Wonthaggi 1909-1968 (Paperback, New)
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Why was it that a small mining community in Victoria on the margin
of Australian coal mining, with a strong union organisation, was
able to exert an influence on that industry out or all proportion
to its size and numbers for more than sixty years? At different
stages of its history the State Coal Mine and its highly unionised
workforce represented a national benchmark for the introduction of
new mining technologies, for the operation of successful sate
enterprises and ultimately the exercise of political influence
within the coal industry. While Wonthaggis mineworkers represented
only a small fraction of the Miners Federations national
membership, their role in the unions recovery following the
depression of the 1930s proved highly influential. In particular,
it was the success of the 1934 Wonthaggi strike that provided the
Federation with the blueprint for community mobilisation that was
to be used successfully for the following decade. Nevertheless, the
history of Wonthaggi as an influential mining community remains a
conundrum. For 60 years the State Mine proved an economic
aberration, working the thin, broken seams of a coalfield that
would have been considered uneconomical in the opinion of most
Australian mine owners. A regional mining community that won a
national reputation, Wonthaggi came to be admired by many, and
disliked by others. Such contradictions can be resolved, in part,
by recognising that for Wonthaggis miners their place within a
national union was as important as their regional sensibility, and
that the solution to local issues depended, to a significant
degree, upon national answers. The union proved central to the
self-perception and identity of the town and its place in wider
industrial and social issues. This book seeks to tell something of
this history.
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