1917 Australian general strike

It took two weeks for all the railway strikers to return, however, as rank and file meetings initially rejected the official capitulation.

The trigger for the strike was the introduction of a new labour costing system introduced by the New South Wales Department of Railways and Tramways.

Groups of workers would continue to join the strike right up until September on the principle of refusing to work with a delivery of coal or of goods from the waterfront.

When waterside workers in Port Pirie refused to unload a delivery of NSW coal, this threatened the operation of the refinery which provided the majority of the lead used for munitions on the Western Front.

Strikebreakers from rural Victoria were sent to the Maitland coal field in the Hunter Valley of NSW where they were set to work in two large pits.

The decision was denounced as a sellout in a series of furious mass meetings and, when it was clear that hundreds would be victimised, many groups of railway workers resumed strike action.

The miners and waterside workers, the two groups most affected by strikebreakers remained on strike till November, in a vain attempt to remove the scabs.

The defeat was a heavy blow for the labour movement and was a major factor in encouraging Billy Hughes, the Prime Minister, to attempt a second conscription referendum in December 1917.

A massive strike-wave that year was spearheaded by some of the groups of workers that had shared in the defeat of 1917, particularly the Broken Hill miners and the seamen.