Cabinet Makers

Cabinet making by Chinese workers was a major niche industry that inspired much anti-Chinese legislation as it was in direct competition with non-Chinese workers. Chinese cabinet makers were also the first to organised and to participate in strike action.

"In the early twentieth century, Chinese cabinetmakers’ militancy in Melbourne not only secured a fair wage from Chinese employers but also influenced emerging pro-labour societies. The Chinese Cabinetmakers’ Union was founded in response to their exclusion from minimum wages law when Chinese cabinetmakers were reimagined as “coolies” to emphasise the threat of cheaper Chinese labour."

Mei-fen Kuo, Reframing Chinese Labour Rights: Chinese Unionists, Pro-Labour Societies and the Nationalist Movement in Melbourne, 1900–10, Labour History , No. 113 (November 2017), pp. 133-155.

Strike 1903 - meeting in Joss House.

The Herald, Wednesday 18 November 1903, p.3.

"A strike has occurred among the Chinese, employed, in the Sydney furniture trade, owing the employers deducting an additional amount from their wages on account of the increased cost of food. The employees bare formed a union, and there is a likelihood of the strike spreading."

Western Star and Roma Advertiser, 4 April 1908, p.2.

See also:

Andrew Markus and Ken Carr, “Divided We Fall: The Chinese and the Melbourne Furniture Trade 1870–1900,” Labour History, no. 26 (March 1974): 1–10;

Liam Ward, “Radical Chinese Labour in Australian History,” Marxist Left Review, no. 10 (Winter 2015), http://marxistleftreview.org/index.php/ no-10-winter-2015/123-radical-chinese-labour-in-australian-history

Peter Gibson, “Voices of Sydney’s Chinese Furniture Factory Workers, 1890–1920,” Labour History, no. 112 (May 2017): 99–117.