The 1949 Australian coal strike was the first time that Australian military forces were used during peacetime to break a trade union strike. The strike by 23,000 coal miners lasted for seven weeks, from 27 June 1949 to 15 August 1949, with troops being sent in by the Ben Chifley Federal Labor government to the open cut coal mines in New South Wales on 28 July 1949, with the workers returning to work, defeated, two weeks later.
Causes
The Australian Coal and Shale Employees' Federation (often known as the Miners' Federation) was heavily influenced at the time by the Communist Party of Australia (CPA), and the strike is widely seen by the Australian community as the CPA applying Cold War Soviet Union Cominform policy in challenging Labor reformism, and promoting a class conflict to promote communist leadership of the working class struggle, at the expense of the Labor Party.
The miners' demands had been lodged over the preceding two years and had included a 35-hour week, a 30-shilling increase in wages, and the inclusion of long service leave as a normal condition of employment.
Government response
Two days after the strike began, the Labor government passed legislation that made it illegal to give strikers and their families financial support (including credit from shops). On 5 July, union officials were ordered to hand over union funds to the industrial registrar. On the following day, union officials were arrested and the respective union and CPA headquarters raided.
At the end of July, seven union officials were sentenced to 12 months' jail and one to six months, with fines being imposed on other officials and three unions. Chifley told the Labor caucus, "The Reds must be taught a lesson", while Arthur Calwell was reported by the union publication The Australian Worker to have said that communists and their sympathisers were only fit for concentration camps. On 1 August 1949, 2500 soldiers commenced coal mining at the open cut mines of Minmi (near Newcastle), Muswellbrook and Ben Bullen, with seven more fields operated later. Malcolm Fraser's government used the Royal Australian Air Force to transport passengers during the 1981 Qantas dispute; Bob Hawke did the same during the 1989 Australian pilots' strike.