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      Indian Seamen and Australian Unions Fighting for Labour Rights: “The Real Facts of the Lascars’ Case” of 1939

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          Abstract

          In 1939, the outbreak of war prompted strikes by Indian seafarers across the empire. This article traces events in Australia as Indian seafarers asserted their labour rights and in doing so contested their exploitative working conditions as “lascars” or the seagoing equivalent of shore-based indentured “coolie” labour. While the Australian government responded in ways that reinforced the “coolie” status of Indian seafarers, the Australian labour movement, most notably the maritime unions, threw their support behind the strikers. The Seamen’s Union of Australia and Waterside Workers’ Federation provided material aid, funded the strikers’ legal costs and, significantly, challenged official and media representations of the Indian seafarers as “coolies” with explanations of their exploitative conditions as “workers.” This action was significant because western seafarers’ lack of support has been seen as contributing to Indian seafarers’ difficulties in challenging their working conditions and status as “lascars.” Showing how Indian and Australian workers together resisted labour categories and fought for political rights complicates prevailing views of the relationship between Australian unions and Asian workers and demonstrates a consistency with the earlier internationalism of Australian maritime unions identified by previous historians.

          Most cited references72

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          “Knives Drawn by Lascars,”“Lascars to Go to New Lodgings,”

          (19391939)
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            “Seamen Walk Off Ship,”“Lascar Seamen Stand Up for Rights,”“Three Weeks for Lascar Seamen,”

            (61309569)
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              • Abstract: not found
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              “South Asian Seafarers and their Worlds, c.1870–1930s,”“Circulation through Seafaring,”“The Muscles of Empire: Indian Seamen and the Raj,”

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                labourhistory
                Labour History: A Journal of Labour and Social History
                Liverpool University Press
                0023-6942
                1839-3039
                November 2017
                : 113 (ID: labourhistory.issue-113 )
                : 209-239
                Article
                labourhistory.113.0209
                10.3828/labourhistory.113.0209
                9d23a213-b248-4df7-8fd2-bf9f0222f71c
                © 2017 Australian Society for the Study of Labour History
                History
                Categories
                Research Article
                Custom metadata
                en

                Economic history,Social policy & Welfare,Economic development,Labor law,Labor & Demographic economics,Cultural studies

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