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A Big Country – On the Hook (1976)

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‘They look after you down here’ education content clip 1, 2

Original classification rating: PG. This clip chosen to be PG

Clip description

We see waterside workers using machinery. The voice-over describes how mechanisation has greatly reduced the hard labour required for the job and the number of employees needed. Current 'wharfies’ confess to little knowledge of 'the old days’.

Curator’s notes

by Janet Bell

This clip is a nicely shot look at modern-day wharfies at work. They all seem young, fit and serious. The short interviews are engaging and give us a sense of the range of people working there.

The whole program is a fascinating longitudinal study of work on the waterfront. In the earliest days of the 20th century, the work was back breaking, irregular and poorly paid. The 1950s was an era of intense struggle for better working conditions while, by the mid-1970s, the young (male) worker could expect a clean workplace with well-paid, regular hours.

When A Big Country made this program, the wharfies still used the hook to lift cargo out of ships’ holds, although the use of containers was fast becoming the norm. Today, with continuing mechanisation, the whole industry has changed again. One of the strengths of documenting Australia for 20 years, as A Big Country has done, is the rich historical material about the working world from around the country that has been collected.

Teacher’s notes

provided by The Le@rning FederationEducation Services Australia

This clip shows the effect of mechanisation on the working conditions of wharf labourers in the 1970s with footage of overhead cranes, containers being lifted on and off ships and interviews with men who are seen attaching crane hooks to offload cargo. Some close-ups show a man’s hand operating controls on a large machine and cables emerging from a winch. Young, fit and well-groomed men are shown at work on board the ship. A narrator provides the voice-over and three men are interviewed about work conditions for wharf labourers.

Educational value points

  • As shown in the clip, waterside work in the mid-1970s had become a secure career with much improved conditions compared to those of previous decades when men were employed by the shift. The physically demanding work had largely been replaced by supervisory functions or in driving or controlling heavy machinery. The waterside workers’ wages were paid regardless of whether work was interrupted by heat or rain. There was annual leave and a pension scheme.
  • The clip draws attention to the effect that mechanisation had on the stevedoring workforce. The 25,000 ‘wharfies’ employed in Australia in the 1950s had become considerably fewer in the 1970s because of automation introduced on the waterfront in the 1960s to cater for container ships, crude oil tankers, bulk ore carriers and roll-on, roll-off shipping. Mechanisation was introduced during the Second World War with forklifts and overhead hammerhead cranes.
  • The young men interviewed in the clip demonstrate confidence and satisfaction from being part of a unionised industry with their union at the height of its power. They are all members of the Maritime Workers Union (MWU), which was a leader in the labour movement and had achieved conditions for its workers that gave terms of employment, safety provisions and amenities unequalled in other industries.
  • The ‘closed shop’ referred to in the clip signified the most important achievement of the Waterfront Workers Federation (WWF) during the Second World War that gave the union the exclusive right to recruit labour, overruling any rights of an employer. Thus union membership was required of all those who worked on the waterfront, a situation that prevailed until 1998 when the monopoly power of the union over labour recruitment was successfully challenged.
  • The Second World War played a key role in accelerating the changes in waterfront conditions identified in the clip. New working conditions and regulations guaranteeing a steady supply of labour were needed to ensure efficiency in achieving a quick turnaround for troop and cargo ships coming to Australian ports. The mechanised cargoes of war demanded new mechanised forms of handling. With the demand for a skilled ongoing labour force the WWF gained power.

Footage of overhead cranes, containers being lifted on and off ships, close-ups of a man’s hand operating controls on a large machine and cables emerging from a winch.
Narrator Mechanisation has greatly reduced the wharfie’s workload and it’s greatly reduced the wharfies. The swarms of toiling men individually man-handling cargoes have been replaced by a relatively small number of permanently-employed wharf labourers working shorter hours for better pay. And it’s a closed shop. Gone are the days when anyone could roll up at the docks and hope for work. Modern wharfies are full-time employees with holiday pay and pensions.
Wharfie 1 (voice-over) Well at the time, I didn’t have a job and a friend of mine told me that it’d be a good job since the conditions have changed and all that sort of thing. So I just went down, filled out a form and just waited.

Several wharfies are being interviewed.
Wharfie 2 I came down because my father works down here and he said I should get on the waterfront, it’s a pretty good job and that. I said I’d give it a go. I came down and I’ve been down here ever since.
Filmmaker What’s the future, though, on the waterfront?
Wharfie 2 I don’t know. Better security, I suppose. It’s, like, a pretty permanent sort of a job. It’s good work and you’re with mates and everything, you know.
Wharfie 1 There’s nothing, sort of, very glamorous about it but it’s just a guaranteed wage and it’s hard work sometimes but they look after you down here.
Filmmaker Carl, do you know any of the history of the old days?
Carl No, not particularly. Just that they used to hire people in the old days.