STAR readers will have a rare opportunity to participate in a joint meeting towards the end of March, when, as part of a Tom Mann Internationalist Tour, activists from Britain and Australia meet across the continents to discuss the future for our labour movements.

The Morning Star has joined the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU) — part-established by Mann and now in its 125th year — Strikemap and publishers Manifesto Press to bring together leading lay and official trade unionists in an online meeting.

This will be chaired by Australia’s Jo Kowalczyk, who leads the Women in Super organisation, which campaigns for gender equality in retirement income. This week Women in Super helped secure legislative and political changes to bring all women on maternity leave into workers’ pension funds. It is considered a major victory after 15 years of campaigning. Already the campaign for special consideration of low income and First Nation women has begun. 

If you are in Sydney during the meeting it’ll be a special evening occasion. If you are in Britain for the same, it’ll be a special morning. There’s an 11-hour time difference but we are a long way from the days when news of the Great Dock Strike took two weeks to arrive. 

Speakers from both countries will share a platform with those taking part able to ask direct questions. 

Tom Mann is probably the best-known trade unionist to emerge from the British union movement. Truly he is a pioneer in the mould of Tom Paine, Robert Owen and Eleanor Marx. In his early years Mann turned down prime minister William Gladstone’s offer to make him the first-ever secretary of state for labour. Decades later he was leading the Hands off Russia campaign and meeting Lenin.

What is barely known in either country is that during the era-shaking Great Dock Strike of 1889, it was Australian workers who sent the present-day equivalent of £4.8 million to feed strikers and their families. This was a decisive intervention. The sum was collected in a fortnight. At the strike victory march to Hyde Park, the Australian flag was flown ahead of the banner of the dockers’ union.

The following year it was our turn to send vital solidarity funds to sustain the Great Australian Dock Strike. In 1901, Mann went to New Zealand and Australia and stayed for just shy of 10 years. In Melbourne, Mann was imprisoned for leading a struggle for free speech. In New South Wales he was arrested for sedition. Mann is considered the founder of many unions and there are cultural centres and streets named after him even today. 

And so a special relationship began between the two labour movements. In 1936 Australian and British volunteers in Spain fought side by side and again at the decisive World War II battles of Tobruk and El-Alamein. During the miners’ and printers’ disputes in the 1980s, solidarity action played an important role and the Australians were among the first to help out. The list of mutual support is long. The International Transport Workers Federation formed by Mann today has an Australian, Paddy Crumlin, as its president and is active in both countries and across the globe.

As author of Yours for the Revolution, a biography of Tom Mann, I have been touring Australia at the invitation of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the Mining and Energy Union, and have been speaking to hundreds of union reps, affiliates of the Australian Labour History Society and trades councils, in trades halls, in Sydney, Melbourne and Newcastle. 

Following the online meeting I fly off to speak about the book to the miners of Broken Hill, scene of the most famous strike in Australian history, led by Mann. During the strike, Mann was arrested for sedition and banned from New South Wales. In a remarkable act of defiance, the miners set Tom up one yard across the border in South Australia. They then hired trains to take strikers and their families to hear him speak across the state line. Secret “Tom Mann Trails” were established to move pickets around, out of sight of the police and state prosecutors. He was banned from ever again entering Australia. 

Still, to mark his 80th birthday and when he died, red flags were flown over trades halls and civic buildings in Victoria.

Mann’s legacy lies in unions and a form of union organising that continues to this day in both countries. This meeting will discuss how the labour movements in Britain and Australia have developed in the 83 years since he died. 

The meeting forms a part of the extensive outreach programme of the GFTU marking its 125th anniversary. The GFTU will be represented by its well-known campaigning general secretary Gawain Little, who will talk about union organising, education and solidarity. The GFTU, with its long tradition of internationalism, responded quickly and decisively to become part of the organising team behind the meeting. Also joining us is Katie Taylor, national executive member of the National Education Union (NEU).  

Manifesto Press will be represented by writer and activist Nigel Flanagan, who will talk about the fourth updated reprint of his book, Our Trade Unions. Flanagan’s book has been described as a “bruising read” for many union activists. You can ask him why that is directly.

Speakers from Australia include Casey Thompson, Emma MacMillan and Damian Cahill. Casey was an organiser for the CFMMU Construction, Forestry, Mining, Maritime Union. Casey oversees the Actu’s Centre for Workers’ Capital and superannuation work across Australia and internationally. 

MacMillan is chief of campaigns for the Transport Workers Union. She has played a major role in achieving minimum pay and conditions for fast-food delivery workers. Cahill is national secretary of the National Tertiary Education Union. This is an industrial union formed along lines promoted by Mann a century ago, but which organises at workplace level.

There are very real similarities between the two trade union movements, but also very real differences in structure and approach and it is hoped this exchange can begin a new path of collaboration and extend mutual understanding and solidarity.

It promises to be a historic meeting during which it will be possible to explore the many ways Mann’s legacy has affected workers in Australia and Britain and the strong bond of internationalism that has existed between the labour movements of both countries. Expect some surprises.

The Tom Mann Internationalist Tour meeting will be held on Saturday March 23 at 9am (UK time) and at 8pm (Australia Time). All are welcome. Registration is required.

You can sign up for the meeting at https://bit.ly/TomMann24, and the first two to do so will receive a copy of Tom Mann: Yours for the Revolution whether they live on the Illawarra peninsula or in Redcar.

To buy your copy of Yours for the Revolution with a special discount of 20 per cent, visit the Morning Star shop at https://tinyurl.com/20offTomMann.