ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book examines how and why workers came together, drawing on evidence from the Australian colonies and relating this back to earlier forms of organization in Europe as well as the political economy of the colonies. It considers a wide array of worker organization, formal and informal, involving unfree and free workers, men and women, European and non-European, all industries and occupations, industrial and political. Considering all forms of organization and collective action provided a more complete picture of the scope and nature of worker mobilization and how regulation and the political economy of particular industries shaped patterns of dissent. Confining analysis to formal organization, or failing to examine the relationship between formal and informal organization, arguably provides a misleadingly narrow picture of worker mobilization.
