Former manager of ‘Tupra Station’, near Oxley Chris McClelland sat down with The Riverine Grazier journalist Kimberly Grabham and delved into the union unrest that reached our region.

In 1983, another industrial disruption loomed in the shearing industry, when the Australian Worker’s Union (AWU) decided to ban the use of wide combs. The old shearing comb has ten teeth and shearers, supported by graziers, wanted to shear with a wider 13 tooth comb for a greater productivity. The union hierarchy said no.

Those three extra teeth caused great disruption to the wool industry, and ultimately broke the back of the AWU in the bush.

Nevertheless, the union has served a legitimate purpose in the early days of our history in seeking better conditions for workers until absolute power and politics went to its head.

In the 1970s, a lot of pastoral development was taking place in Western Australia, and a huge rise in sheep numbers occurred.

Unemployment was escalating, and many workers without a union dominated background sought employment in the shearing industry.

Still, there were not enough Australian shearers, and many New Zealand shearers began crossing the Tasman, bringing their experimental wide combs, and adapting them to the tougher Merino sheep.

They were not members of the AWU, and although they were breaking industrial law, the union had no jurisdiction over them.

Australian shearers could see the advantages of using wider combs, and because many union members could be fined and their equipment confiscated under the Union Rule 123, many people simply became non-union.

The concerned AWU realised they were losing members and turned a blind eye to the use of wide gear by Australian shearers in WA and the wide comb issue simmered for a number of years.

In 1981, the union began a frenzy of meetings in Dubbo and elsewhere, and imposed black-bans on properties allowing shearers to use wide combs.

Members breaking union rules were prosecuted under the registered Rule 123, which made it an offence against the union for any shearer, who was a member of the union, to use combs wider than 2.5 inches.

Most of the confrontation occurred in NSW, and the Livestock and Grain Producers Association (LGPA), made application for Clause 32, ‘the prohibition of use of combs wider than 2.5 inches to be removed form the Federal Pastoral Industry Award.’

The union cleverly retaliated by spreading rumours that graziers would push for a lower rate of pay per sheep due to higher achievable daily numbers with the use of wide combs.

This was a mischievous fabrication and untruth but only what you would expect from the desperate union hierarchy.

Shearers ‘tongue-in-cheek’ grievances were sympathetically aired by the ABC on national radio from time to time.

We learnt about muscle arm fatigue, tendon injury, and other plights.

Meanwhile, the three inch, thirteen tooth wide comb was being used in most countries around the world without comment except for Australia.

Generally, for shearers, the wide comb meant easier work, higher tallies, and, importantly, more money in the pocket.

With higher productivity, the grazier could expect substantially lower costs.

In November 1982, Commissioner McKenzie made a decision permitting the use of wide combs by those shearers wanting to.

The AWU lodged an appeal to the Full Bench of the Arbitration Commission in February 1983, and in due course, the Arbitration Commission commented on AWU’s attitude as ‘being hedged by conservatism, tinged with hysteria,’ and rejected the appeal.

The AWU out of spite declared a national strike in the shearing industry.

The fight was on – there would be no reconciliation or compromise.

We had already learnt that compromise was a badge of the weak, like political correctness, and the eventual undermining and termination of any worthwhile and just cause.

Consequentially, the NFF in retaliation asked its members to shear as many sheep as possible and to make it obvious that it was business as usual – to put shorn sheep in the paddocks for all to see.

Grazcos organised all available willing shearers to break the strike and shear.

“In February 1983, crutching was coming up at Tupra and with the shearers strike in full swing” Chris McClelland recalled.

“Ian McLachlan was not going to tolerate this union nonsense, and decided to show the flag with staunch purpose.

He arranged to employ the shearing contractor Bob White, who was one of the main antagonists in the dispute, a figure loathed by the union, and some of its members.

White had been shearing with wide combs for a number of years and employed many New Zealanders who were a tough, resilient back up force. They soon became the target of physical threats, confrontations and all out skirmishes in public places.

And so, we brought to a property a team of about 25 men and women to crutch our sheep.

The operation had to be run with military precision, because we realised that with Ian’s high profile, we would become the focus of organised mischief if not mayhem.

Already shearers were brawling with each other in pubs across NSW, and a station manager was brutally bashed with an iron bar on a property out west somewhere.

The union was hiring aircraft to spot sheds shearing across the Riverina, and were threatening to black ban the handling of wool from those properties by their members in the wool stores around the nation.

Consequently, a battle plan was carefully drawn up and immediately put into action.

Maximum security on Tupra was of upmost importance.

We employed three extra men from Ian’s other properties.

Their job was to work in the yard and make sure that three quiet horses were always saddled, fed and watered and kept close by the sheep yards throughout the working day.

I climbed the once pollarded Athol trees in front of the office, and cut over 30 cudgels about three foot long from the marvellously smooth, straight and heavy sucker regrowth.

Every man and woman on the station was issued with one, and these would provide a great weapon for the horsemen whose mobility we considered would confuse a large incursion of hostile men onto the property.

The female cook had a loaded shotgun in the kitchen, and there were some rifles hidden away.

These we banned and the shotgun was temporarily confiscated and locked in the station office. Our neighbour Pip Boorman agreed to keep his Cessna 180 aircraft on standby in case needed.

If trouble was to occur, we expected that an entry of a hostile force would be made over the station bridge across the Lachlan River, and not the more difficult long way around overland.

So we chained and padlocked an old truck on the bridge so that any incursion would have to be made on foot, making those participants more vulnerable.”