A Century of Struggle

A Cen­tu­ry of Strug­gle (1981, 40mins)

A Cen­tu­ry of Strug­gle chron­i­cles the hun­dred-year his­to­ry of the NZ Sea­men’s Union from its for­ma­tion in 1879. Using orig­i­nal film and archive footage, it exam­ines the work­ing lives of sea­men and the bat­tles fought by their union from the sail­ing ships of colo­nial days to the mod­ern tur­bine-pow­ered con­tain­er ves­sels. Because the Seamen’s Union was fre­quent­ly at the fore­front of work­ing-class strug­gle in New Zealand, its sto­ry involves most of the cru­cial issues and events in the his­to­ry of the union move­ment gen­er­al­ly, includ­ing the great mar­itime strikes of 1890 and 1913 and the water­front dis­pute of 1951.

Inter­vie­wees: Fred Annabell, Dave Clarke, Joe Fleet­wood, Bri­an (‘Slim’) Ford, Peter Galt, Dave Gra­ham, Tom Gre­go­ry, Leonard (‘Bluey’) Hol­land, Pat Lum­ber, Alick Mac­Don­ald, Bill (‘Pinch­er’) Mar­tin, John O’Neill, Paul Palmer, Gar­ry Parsloe, Har­ry Scul­lion, Far­quhar Stod­dart, Hec­tor Thor­pe, Mick Williams, Alan Wind­sor, Jim Woods

Cred­its:
Van­guard Films, 1981, for the NZ Seamen’s Union
Writ­ten, pro­duced, direct­ed and filmed by Alis­ter Bar­ry, Rod Pross­er & Rus­sell Camp­bell
Music Alis­tair Cuthill, Alis­tair McQuil­lan
Nar­ra­tor Des Kel­ly
Scenes from ‘The Coast­er’ direct­ed by Cecil Holmes
1951 water­front dis­pute footage Rudy Sunde
Library footage NZ Nation­al Film Unit, TVNZ

© 1980, 2016 Mar­itime Union of New Zealand