Item #CL187-133 Barrier Industrial Council Badges Collection
Barrier Industrial Council Badges Collection
Barrier Industrial Council Badges Collection
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Barrier Industrial Council Badges Collection

c1930s-1973. Eighty-six (86) process screen badges, most badges are dated with stamped union member number, sizes from 2.5cm to 3.8cm (diameter). Some badges with slight rust stains or minor indentations.

Broken Hill, known as an isolated mining town in NSW, has a history of strikes and industrial disputes dating back to 1892. The Barrier Industrial Council (BIC) was formed in Broken Hill in 1923 as an amalgamation of eighteen unions representing miners and trade workers in the town, and grew to be a powerful political and economic influence from which Australia’s labour movement grew. The BIC achieved the 35-hour work week for miners, as well as compensation for industrial disease.

A tradition of the BIC is the “Badge Show Day”, a campaign started to ensure that all workers on the mines were members of the union. The badges were colour-coded to represent the shift miners worked: since the late 1920s, “the Day Shift badge is red, the Afternoon Shift badge was blue and the Night Shift badge is yellow. With the introduction of the 12 hour shifts in the mining industry came the phasing out of the Afternoon Shift [blue] badge.” Ref: Barrier Industrial Council; Wiki; Ellem & Shields, The life and times of the Barrier Industrial Council…, 2001.

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Item #CL187-133

Price (AUD): $2,950.00  other currencies

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