ABSTRACT
This chapter is driven by two ideas, each derived from the work of Michael Quinlan: the existence of informal mobilisation in working class politics, and the democratic potential of informal worker mobilisation because of its collectivist character. My argument is that in the insubordination of Australian workers in the 1910s, we can discover a third moment in the Australian history of radical democracy, following the introduction of the practices of democratic organisation by radical workingmen in the 1840s, and the adoption by the labour movement in the 1890s of practices designed to ensure that the working-class membership of the Labor party should control its politicians. This chapter examines six aspects of informal worker mobilisation in the 1910s to establish the argument: strikes without union involvement; strikes in defiance of the union; violence during strikes; the extension of the term ‘strike’ to cover other protests; returned soldiers rioting as workers; and the rejection of parliamentarism.
