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