"Here's something to ease your pain" : community and the response to Rockhampton's Lakes Creek Meatworks crisis, 2002

The protracted industrial dispute which ultimately led to the indefinite closure of one of Australia's largest export abattoirs, Lakes Creek Meatworks, created an economic and humanitarian crisis in the Central Queensland city ofRockhampton through mass unemployment and poverty. This paper employs the concepts of "community" and "labour-community coalitions" to explore the responses from various sections of the populace. It argues that shared perceptions of threat melded normally separate social and economic groups into a united community of interests which mobilised as a community of action. However, that united front collapsed as the dispute continued and nonnal sectional interests and ideological orientations resurfaced.