The Shearers and Rural Workers Union, Australian Shearing, 1995
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- Опубліковано 9 вер 2013
- This material of historical interest has been uploaded for the purposes of scholarship and research. It was originally broadcast in Australia by Channel Nine's "Sunday" program in 1995. It contains a superb representation of the different cultural attitudes that existed within the Australian shearing industry, and of union and farmer organisations. After a final ruling on the controversial "wide combs" by the Australian Industrial Commission in June 1984, the industry underwent profound changes. The Australian Workers Union lost much of its influence. A new agreement between the AWU and the NFF permitted weekend shearing, which hitherto had been strenuously resisted. A new more militant union was formed (featured in this video) but it struggled to make an impact, despite the muscular claims of its main spokesman in the segment. The long and complex history of shearing is told in "Mateship and Moneymaking, Australian Shearing: The Clash of Union Solidarity with the Spirit of Enterprise, 1895 - 1995" by Rory O'Malley, published by Xlibris. There is also a thesis held at the University of New England by Rory O'Malley dated November 2003: "Shearers from New Zealand in the Australian Wool Industry (circa 1955 to 1995). The website shearinghistory.com is also useful.
2020 and they still haven't replaced shearers with robot.
Love Steve Roachs work.
Some interesting posts here on UA-cam, including this one, that provide some insight into shearing, the life of shearers, and the politics of rural Australia. No doubt it is one of the most physically demanding jobs in the world, and requires a high degree of skill as well. Better shearing machines and slings to take some of the upper body weight off the shearers back help, (called here a 'back brace'; but the strap worn around the middle and known as a back brace in the USA is useless to east back strain), but only a little. Of the innovations to make the process easier, most are too complex (prone to breakdown and high maintenance costs), and much too expensive to buy in the first place. Using a drug to stimulate uniform wool shedding with the sheep sewn up in nets also seems to have a number of potential problems- and 20 years later has not become widespread. The best solution for easing the physical strain- significantly lengthening a shearer's working life while reducing back injury - that I have seen is the Moffat shearing table. Unlike many shearing tables, it is simple and rugged in construction and easy to use. (See the UA-cam video.) Still, in spite of how easy the demo video makes shearing on the table look, catching, loading on the table, and shearing sheep - quickly while preserving wool quality and minimizing nicks - is still a skilled and demanding job... especially as sheep are not always as clean or docile as shown in the demonstration.
Thank you for your guidance
Watching this in 2024 as an X shearer. It’s funny now wool is worth stuff all except gd Merino fine wool.
Robots have been shearing sheep since shearing was a thing. Us shearers are the robots!
♥.♥
19:28 What exactly happened here?
An nothing changed up until 2020. Thank you covid for doing what the unions couldn't do for us shearers
08:02 is that Village People?
No Union.
Confederacy Forever!!!
someone is confused