The 1908 wood line strikes in Western Australia: causes and consequences

Abstract

This paper examines the 1908 wood line strikes in Western Australia and the role of Southern European workers in these strikes within the context of Honneth’s theory of mobilisation. The paper argues against established views of these workers which perceive them as passive participants in culturally divisive anti-union employer strategies and for an alternative evidentiary and theoretical basis for interpreting Southern European worker-employer relations as well as relations within the culturally diverse industrial workforce of the Western Australian goldfields in the early 20th Century.