Abstract

In the Cold/Class War of the late 1940s in Australia, the state intervened to limit labour’s exercising its superior bargaining strength. The principal agency of coercion was the arbitration system, rearmed with punitive powers by the 1947 Act. Of prime concern were the vanguard communist-led trade unions covering the strategic bottleneck industries. Industrial disputes affecting them were interpreted as threats to national security, and war on communism on the home front was war on communist union officials. Ted Roach serving a 12 months sentence in Long Bay Jail was a prisoner of that war.