ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies three distinctive streams of collective action amongst service workers. First, there was small-scale action by domestic servants (mostly female) and those employed in hotels (convict and free) that rarely extended to multiple workplaces let alone formal organization. Second, a similar pattern amongst retail workers prior to 1840 was followed by significant efforts at formal organization, modelled on the UK, to pursue shorter working hours through the early-closing of shops. Third, there was a single attempt to establish a benefit society of private sector and government clerks in Sydney also drawing on UK models. Workers also organized in domestic service, hospitality, retailing, commercial and professional services. While organization was largely informal and single workplace-based, there is evidence of wider organization, including unions formed by clerks and shop-assistants. Multi-workplace dissent domestics was also organized by women in Female Factories. By far the most substantial mobilization of service workers was the early-closing movement.
