No truck with the Chilean Junta! : direct and indirect trade union internationalist actions, Australia and Britain, 1973-1980
type: CreativeWork
description: When lorry drivers in Northampton slapped the stickers on their cabs declaring "No truck with the Chilean Junta!" they were participating in more than an isolated threat to boycott. They were expressing their identity as internationalists; upholding union traditions of internationalism; and showing support for union policy. Still, there was more: they were taking part in a symbiotic relationship with a social movement. Union action on extra-industrial campaigns is both a longstanding ideological imperative and a practice that predates the resurgence of social movements in the 1960s. Yet since its inception, the Chile solidarity movement had encouraged, planned for, enabled and used trade unions. This thesis compares two such movements in Australia and Britain from 1973-1980. Drawing upon a wide array of archival material and other sources in conjunction with extensive interviewing, this thesis places trade unions at the centre of the solidarity story. It records the actions that unions took for political gain external to their organisation and nation. Social movements, in this case Chile Solidarity Campaigns, were connected to unions by a range of social and institutional ties and organised their activities in an attempt to harness and maximise union support and power. This thesis provides a series of previously unrecorded or under-recorded case studies of trade union political action. It attempts to define those actions in terms of direct and indirect actions, as characterising social movement or industrial national unionism and as stemming from the ideology of the old or new left. The case studies suggest five main findings. Firstly, that individuals, unions and the Chile Campaigns were locked together in a mutually supportive and legitimating cycle of action. In addition the relationship between unions, social movements and political structures was mediated by 'faddists' and other strategic individuals. Thirdly, that the threat to union core aims and use of union…
abstract: When lorry drivers in Northampton slapped the stickers on their cabs declaring "No truck with the Chilean Junta!" they were participating in more than an isolated threat to boycott. They were expressing their identity as internationalists; upholding union traditions of internationalism; and showing support for union policy. Still, there was more: they were taking part in a symbiotic relationship with a social movement. Union action on extra-industrial campaigns is both a longstanding ideological imperative and a practice that predates the resurgence of social movements in the 1960s. Yet since its inception, the Chile solidarity movement had encouraged, planned for, enabled and used trade unions. This thesis compares two such movements in Australia and Britain from 1973-1980. Drawing upon a wide array of archival material and other sources in conjunction with extensive interviewing, this thesis places trade unions at the centre of the solidarity story. It records the actions that unions took for political gain external to their organisation and nation. Social movements, in this case Chile Solidarity Campaigns, were connected to unions by a range of social and institutional ties and organised their activities in an attempt to harness and maximise union support and power. This thesis provides a series of previously unrecorded or under-recorded case studies of trade union political action. It attempts to define those actions in terms of direct and indirect actions, as characterising social movement or industrial national unionism and as stemming from the ideology of the old or new left. The case studies suggest five main findings. Firstly, that individuals, unions and the Chile Campaigns were locked together in a mutually supportive and legitimating cycle of action. In addition the relationship between unions, social movements and political structures was mediated by 'faddists' and other strategic individuals. Thirdly, that the threat to union core aims and use of union…
author: Jones, Ann
language: en_AU
date published: 2009
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:07:48Z
provider: Australian Catholic University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Australian Catholic University

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/150377