Waterside Workers Federation Film Unit

Filmed secretly in Sydney by Dutch documentarian Joris Ivens, this short records the solidarity of Indonesian seamen, Australian trade unionists, and local activists who refused to support Dutch efforts to restore colonial rule after World War II. More than a chronicle, it was an act of protest that aligned cinema with the Indonesian independence movement.

During the height of the Cold War, the Waterside Workers' Federation Film Unit produced eleven (11) films for several trade unions on political and industrial issues. Independent film-makers worked with them to develop critical dialogue from one generation of concerned film-makers onto another. FILM-WORK looks at sequences from 4 of these films and interviews some of their makers, raising a diversity of issues pertinent to current debates in film, history and politics. The 4 films that are looked at are PENSIONS FOR VETERANS (1953, NSW Branch, WWF), THE HUNGRY MILES (1954, WWF), NOVEMBER VICTORY (1955, WWF), and HEWERS OF COAL (1953, Miners Federation). PENSIONS FOR VETERANS covers the issue of the need for pensions to be given to workers who have worked on the waterfront all their life. THE HUNGRY MILES shows the strength of the workers, the union and its democracy. HEWERS OF COAL is about the coal miners and their struggle to get better working conditions and pensions.

A comedy portraying four unpopular and undesirable types of waterfront worker - Glass-arm Harry (a shirker), Tiddly Pete (a drunk), Nick-away Ned (a believer in 'shorter' working hours) and Ron the Roaster (a know it all and loud mouth). All played with great comic effect by Jock Levy. Shot on the wharves at Walsh Bay, Sydney with the aim of educating workers that this type of behaviour damages the union and provides bosses and the media with an excuse to make baseless generalisations about all waterfront workers.

Film made in support of a campaign by the Waterside Workers Federation seeking pensions for older waterside workers. It depicts the hardships veterans, particularly older workers as well as some of the health and economic issues they endure. Shows a delegation of older workers, led by the WWF's Jim Healy and Tom Nelson boarding a bus in Sydney and travelling to Canberra, where they gather outside Parliament House. Climaxes with a mass meeting of waterside workers at Leichhardt Stadium and concludes with a group of elderly wharfies walking along the Sydney docks.