Migrant Labour and the Emotional Politics of the Mount Isa Dispute, 1964−65

Unfolding in the middle of the Cold War, the Mount Isa dispute was one of the longest and most dramatic strikes in Queensland history. It engaged 4,000 miners, many of whom were recent migrants from Greece, Italy, Finland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands and Germany. Importantly, the strike was characterised by the circulation of thousands of ephemeral leaflets produced by rival trade unions and local citizen groups. To use the words of the Mount Isa Mail , the dispute was a “war of pamphlets.” Drawing on an archive of workers’ pamphlets never explored before, this article takes a history of emotions approach to the strike. A chaotic blend of texts and images, pamphlets were a crucial tool through which activists mobilised workers’ emotions. Pamphlets helped activists to legitimise workers’ resentment against Mount Isa Mines’ paternalistic managers and turn their shame into anger. By providing a tentative analysis of the visual and textual language of the pamphlets and other sources, the article offers an example of the potential as well as the limits of a history of emotions approach to labour.