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The United Trades and Labor Council.
 The
United Trades and Labor Council (hitherto abbreviated to UTLC)
are celebrating 120 years of protecting the interests of South
Australian workers, and what better way to do that that than
through a series of gigs over the May Day weekend?
For those unaware of the date's significance, May Day commemorates
a particularly important event in the history of labour, an
event that bears remembering in 2004, as we work longer and
longer hours. In 1884, with workers being forced to work up
to fourteen hours a day, the Federation of Organized Trades
and Labor Unions of the United States (who had only formed three
years earlier) passed a resolution that the first of May 1886
would mark the beginning of the eight-hour work day. Any employers
that refused to honour this resolution would find their workforce
on strike.
This was, unsurprisingly, met with with fierce opposition from commercial organisations and the government of the day and the celebrations and rallies that marked May Day in towns like Chicago and New York also drew a large police and military presence. Unsurprisingly, conflicts and violence escalated as large employers brought in strikebreakers and scab labour and (some say) union leaders were threatened and beaten by police. A rally in Chicago's Haymarket square resulted in the death of eight participants when police opened fire on the crowd when a homemade bomb was thrown at police, killing an officer (suspected to be the work of an agent provocateur to discredit the unions).
Trade unions around the world adopted May Day as their day, both to honour those who lost their lives in the pursuit of workers right and - most importantly - to celebrate solidarity and the achievements of the movement. Music has always played a vital part in the union movement (think of South Australia's own Trade Union Choir), and as The Whitlams' leader Tim Freedman eloquently puts it, "I think the union cause has always been carried on the wings of song. I mean, that's what everyone would do in the pub after the May Day march, sing their songs."
Freedman is justly proud to be headlining one of the May Day celebrations at the Governor Hindmarsh. "Unions are indespensible," he insists, "especially in these days of workplace bargaining and increased chaos, and I think that every community needs those strong community institutions, and unions are a prime example of those that we should not lose our belief in.
"I also think it's useful that unions try to celebrate in ways that are relevant to younger people, because often it's only the younger people that actually take advantage of unions: they don't mind having protected minimum hourly wages while they're working menial jobs on the way through their degree, and often that's the last that they have to do with a union, after it's done some good for them."
Freedman has little time for the anti-union/pro-individual workplace relations policies of the current government. "Well, it started with the debacle with the docks [in Victoria] and since then it's been more by stealth," he spits. "They tried to be obvious, then they realised they couldn't be."
However, he's bashful when I ask whether he'll be pulling out any red anthems for the evening: "I'm not sure that I have any anthems that will go down in history to be sung after May Day launches, but the spirit's there."
Please - this is the man whose band's name and first single (Gough) were both inspired by Australia's last truly left-wing Prime Minister. "Yeah, but that was a personality piece, that one... although, having said that, I've got a new song which is a very, very gentle call to arms."
A stroll to arms, perhaps?
"Exactly," he chuckles. "An amble to arms. I'm still finishing it - it's about looking out of a tour bus three years ago, after John Howard was re-elected, and feeling that somehow the country had changed while I was sleeping - not being able to recognise your own country. So it's about being confused and not having any answers as to why it had happened when it was so obvious to you that it was..." he pauses, finding the word, "...destructive."
I couldn't agree more, comrade.
Andrew P Street
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The Governor Hindmarsh hosts the UTLC celebrations on Fri 30 April (with Skulker, Sumi and Angelik) and Sat 1 May (with Tim Freedman, Andrew P Street and Liam Gerner).
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