Delivery drivers will get minimum wage in Australia’s ‘world-first’ deal. Is it fair – and will Uber Eats cost more?

This month in labour history

1-08-1990 Founding of the United Firefighters Union of Australia. [more]

2-08-1917 Members of engineering and rail unions across Sydney begin to strike against the time card system, with more workers taking unofficial action the next day. [more]

9-08-1917 The number of workers on strike across Sydney increases to 45,000 when miners and longeshoremen join the action. [more]

12-08-1917 The Australian government informs the people, through the Sunday papers, that "The enemies of Britain and her Allies have succeeded in plunging Australia into a general strike." [more]

14-08-1917 Seamen's Union Vice President W. Daly is arrested and charged with conspiracy to instigate an illegal strike. [more]

16-08-1890 Marine officers walk off their ships in strike action, soon followed by their crews. [more]

17-08-1861 Coal miners in NSW refuse 20% wage cut & walk out; locked out until October. [more]

22-08-1966 200 aboriginal workers walk off the job in Wave Hill to back their demand for pay equality with white workers. The strike runs for 9 years and expands to include a demand for the return of stolen land. [more]

23-08-1966 Two hundred Gurindji workers walk off their cattle station at Wave Hill, a strike that will last almost a decade and lead to the passage of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. [more]

24-08-1917 The government declares that the Strike Committee in Sydney shall be considered an illegal organisation. [more]

25-08-1989 All 1640 domestic airline pilots, organized by the AFAP, resign to back their pay claim. TWU members refuse to refuel RAAF planes being used to break the pilots. [more]

26-08-1894 Striking shearers burn and destroy the steamship 'Rodney', which had been used to transport scabs on the Darling River. [more]

30-08-1917 First labour martyr Merv Flanagan shot and killed in Sydney during General Strike for yelling 'scab'. His murderer Reginald Wearne ( whose brother was a consevative MP) was never convicted. [more]

31-08-1890 Up to 100,000 workers gather in Melbourne to support the sheep shearers' strike [more]