ABSTRACT
The 1973 strike at Ford Broadmeadows in Melboure caused a major stir at the time and is still accepted as landmark in recent history of Australian industrial relations. This was in part due to its length; in part to intensity of feeling exhibited by rank and file workers, outflanking left-wing union officials and breaking into violence at one point; in part to the blow it dealt to the stereotypes of the passively exploitable ‘migrant’ worker. This chapter presents these developments through the eyes of the Broadmeadows shop stewards. At the end of the first week the workers of the Ford Broadmeadows complex were left to their own resources, ‘like chickens in the middle of the road’. Individual defections will probably still occur but collective cultural resistance to them has now crystallised with considerable force and the committed steward is now seen as an honourable figure: Some people work themselves into the ground to get more material things for their children.
