Hi-Viz Faith on Labour Day

You know you’re living in The Land of the Long Weekend when you have a holiday called Labour Day! The old saying that ‘Aussies have a great facility for knocking off’ just isn’t true any longer – statistics say we work longer than almost anywhere in the world. So why celebrate the 8-Hour-Day?
 
Melbourne stonemasons were among the first in the world to achieve the 8-hour-working day after they walked off the job in April 1856 and the ripple spread across the whole country. These colonial block layers laid the foundations for one of the strongest trade union movements on the planet making the impossible dream of 'eight hours labour, eight hours rest, and eight hours recreation' a reality.
 
The victory was achieved without a reduction in pay or violence. These colonials set an international precedent, demonstrating that workers could achieve improved conditions through organized action. 

​The phenomenon of a nation born only half a century before with the clink of convict chain gangs, transforming into a ‘workers’ paradise’, was fuelled from a surprising source. It’s forgotten that a significant number of the pioneers of the union movement were men with an active Christian faith.
 
When the new national headquarters of the Australian Workers Union was opened in Melbourne in 2003, it was named for William Guthrie Spence. Few remember that this remarkable man - variously described as a founder of the nation, the number one labour saint and the greatest union organiser in Australian history, was a man of deep Christian conviction.  In back-country Victoria, he was welcomed by working-class Methodist communities as an inspirational preacher and Sunday School Superintendent.
 
The sound of gunfire from the Eureka Stockade uprising of 1854 in Ballarat made an impact that stayed with William all his life. Toiling as a shepherd, a butcher-boy and in shearing sheds and mines gave him a deep sympathy for the struggles of the working men and their wives. Largely self-taught, he studied Jesus, St Paul and a number of leading 19th century thinkers including Karl Marx.
 
This mix of experience and ideas blended a passionate world view which saw him launch the Australian Miners Union in the 1880’s where he proved an outstanding organiser. When he founded the Shearer’s Union in 1886, and then amalgamated smaller unions into the Australian Workers Union - Spence said bushmen saw it as their own kind of religion, a matter of mates banding together to throw off tyranny. He always advocated moderate action.
 
He insisted that unionism was first and foremost an expression of the radical worldview incubated by Jesus in a carpenter’s workshop. ‘Spence almost effortlessly made the connections between the teachings of Jesus and … socialist ideals …  Unashamed of his allegiance to Christ, Spence frequently spoke from the union political platform of his debt to Jesus… At a crowded public meeting at Bourke, Spence declared: “Individualism has brought the worst and most selfish natures in humanity to the front. The New Unionism is simply the teachings of that greatest of all social reformers, Him of Nazareth, whom all must revere.”’ (Lindner)
 
For William Spence it was a matter of doing what Jesus would have him do for the downtrodden of society – stirring a fresh wind to blow away the musty theology common in many churches. He dreamed of Christian faith in overalls that sweated alongside people in the workplace.  'It is useless', he said, 'to go on preaching from Sabbath to Sabbath asking men to be better but … the New Unionism is to deal with those evils in a practical manner'.
 
Sadly, the Christian contribution of evangelicals like Spence never became part of Labour Party mythology. Many of the churches retreated into middle class respectability. On the other side, a recent historian commented, ‘As the Labour Party departed from its spiritual roots, its capacity to enlarge the whole population’s opportunity for liberty and justice and to recruit politicians who were sustained by such ideals, was seriously impaired.’ Piggin 469.
 
Back in 1856, the Stone masons’ union had put forward three main arguments for wanting a shorter working day. The first was that Australia’s harsh climate demanded reduced hours. The second was that labourers needed time to develop their ‘social and moral condition’ through education. The third was that workers would be better fathers, husbands and citizens if they were allowed adequate leisure time.
 
On this 8-Hour Day holiday, I want to salute industrial chaplains and people like my mate Bruno Efoti of Tradies Insight in Dubbo, who are putting their faith into Hi-viz gear in the workplace to skill young men and women in being those better parents, partners and citizens of Australia.