Export meatworkers in Rockhampton and Townsville : divergence or convergence?

This paper will discuss the significance, the relevance, and the accuracy of the view that the industrial actions of members of the Australasian Meat Industry Employees’ Union at a number of different meat export abattoirs in Townsville and Rockhampton during the course of the last century, were quite different. Furthermore, the paper will examine the nature and extent of this difference, as well as the scholarly attention that it has received from labour historians. The paper will analyse the industrial actions and tactics of export meatworkers in Rockhampton and Townsville over a long period of time. The evidence that emerges from any such study opens lines of further enquiry respecting the history of the Meatworkers’ Union and industrial relations in the meat export industry in Queensland in particular, as well as in Australia as a whole.