Waving the flag at the Mitchell
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday January 2, 2010
THE proud boilermakers and ship builders who carried their huge union banner through Sydney's streets almost 100 years ago might have been surprised by their modern-day equivalents."Think of the Mardi Gras parade today," Paul Brunton, the senior curator at the Mitchell Library, says. "Both the union marchers and the Mardi Gras paraders were showing pride in what they were, and how they are a [valued] part of society."For the past two months, a team of 18 conservators have painstakingly restored the union banner of the once-mighty Sydney branch of the Federated Society of Boilermakers, Iron & Steel Ship Builders of Australia.Made about 1913, and about three metres square, the banner is the largest and most fragile object in the library's collection.It was was donated to the library in 1972 after the union was amalgamated. Since then it has remained in storage.But it is about to get another moment in the sun. Brunton has chosen it as one of the 100 unusual objects which will be exhibited in March to mark the library's 100th anniversary."There would have been hundreds of these union banners in Australia, but not a lot survived," Mr Brunton says. "They were used for the Eight Hour Day March originally, which became the Six Hour Day March."Every October, on the Labour Day holiday, up to 5000 workers, representing up to 70 different trades unions would march through Sydney."It was one of the most prominent annual celebrations staged in Australia," Mr Brunton says. "There would be picnics, raffles and often a dinner, which would also be attended by civic dignitaries and employers."The concept of union banners was borrowed from Britain, but Mr Brunton says there was a significant difference here. "In Britain, the banners were mainly used for protest. But in Australia, the Eight Hour Day March wasn't a protest to win an eight hour day, but a celebration of something already achieved."They were demonstrating that [unions] were an important part of a liberal democratic society and that an eight hour working day was an attribute of a civilised society.The slogan was 'eight hours' work, eight hours' play and eight hours' rest'."As Mr Brunton points out, it is a formula for a balanced lifestyle which seems to have been lost - ironically in part by inventions which were meant to liberate us: flexible working hours, the mobile phone and the internet."This one was made by a Sydney firm, Althouse & Geiger, which was founded in 1875 and remains in operation today," Brunton says."They were two Americans who arrived in Australia in 1874 and were soon recognised as the creme de la creme of banner makers."Agata Rostek-Robak, who is leading the banner conservation team, says the banner consists of three pieces of fabric: an inner core, wrapped on either side by an unprimed canvas on which the artists would handpaint the ships, trains, boilers and slogans which meant so much to union members.With one side completed, the team will begin on the other side in time for the exhibition, opening on March 9.
© 2010 Sydney Morning Herald
