COAL PART 3: How miners secured workers' rights
14 Jun 2016

Part three of this series examines coal’s role in the development of industrial relations. In New Zealand, it was a dispute at the West Coast's Blackball mine, over a lunch break, that led to the formation of the Federation of Labour (the "Red Feds"), and then to the birth of the Labour Party.
![]() |
Where strong union organisation was present, it was the result of hard work and efforts to organise members focused on protection rather than revolution |
... login or subscribe for full story