W.G. Dunstan: Operative Painters and Decorators of Australasia, Victorian Branch, 1915. Source: Museum Victoria
Origins
Before World War I the Eight Hour Day processions were the greatest annual celebrations in Australia. They originated with the triumphal march, 12 May 1856, from the Carlton Gardens to the Cremorne Gardens in Richmond, to celebrate the gaining of the Eight Hour Day on 21 April, 1856. A special banner, 8 Hours Labour 8 Hours Recreation 8 Hours Rest; was launched. Then ‘Shortly after ten o’clock the procession, about 1,200 or 1,500 strong, preceded by the band, issued forth … supported by a Union Jack, with a golden figure of Eight on the spear end of the shaft.’ The procession was followed by a dinner for six to seven hundred, speeches, sports and other festivities including fireworks.
Processions were subsequently held annually and in 1879 the Victorian government declared the Eight Hour Day celebrations a public holiday. Workers marched with banners, floats and bands through Melbourne and country towns, watched by tens of thousands of people. The procession was traditionally led by the original 8 Hours Labour 8 Hours Recreation 8 Hours Rest banner, which survived until the 1970s.
The Banners
Banners only appeared in public for Eight Hour Day processions. This contrasts with their British counterparts, which were used in strikes and demonstrations supporting progressive causes.
While the original 8 Hour Day banner was made of bunting, most of the early banners were either silk or calico. These were vulnerable to the weather; and many were reportedly destroyed by high winds. More robust canvas banners became common from the 1890s.
Banners were too large and too heavy to be carried by hand. They were mounted onto horse-drawn drays and later onto lorries. Early in the 20th century, complicated frames were made so the banners could be lowered as they passed under the power and tram lines that were becoming part of the cityscape.
There were more than 200 Victorian banners made from 1856 to 1950, but only about a dozen survive. It is thought that a lot were burnt in a Collingwood fire in the mid 1960s. Having previously restored three banners, Melbourne Museum and trade unions have conserved four banners as part of the Eight Hour Day 150th celebrations.
Imagery
Designs incorporating 888, the depiction of native flora and fauna as well as coats of arms, are typical of Australian banners. British motifs taken up here include work themes showing workplaces, skills and processes, tools and machinery; men in uniform symbolising their work; clasped hands as a symbol of mutual help and friendship; and bundles of sticks. The sticks represent the power of organised labour: a single stick is easily broken but a bundle cannot be destroyed. Flags and the globe signal international ties.
Women were frequently used as allegorical representation of countries or virtues such as truth, justice and peace. They virtually never appear as workers in the old banners – a situation the modern banners artists sought to address in the 1980s.
Historical and biblical figures, associated with craft skills or industry, added legitimacy to trade unions. Printers depicted Caxton, for example, and the carpenters, Joseph of Nazarene. Some figures may be portraits of union members or officials – a strong tradition in British banners, but less popular in Australia.
Slogans usually underlined themes of unity, for example, ‘United to Assist, Not Combined to injure’ and ‘Unity is Strength’. The quote from Schiller on the reverse of the Operative Painters & Decorators banner is repeated in the modern banner: ‘The murmurs that go to make the Thunders roar, taken Singly, might lull an infant to repose. United their crash would shake the eternal vaults of heaven.’
Sometimes a close relationship existed between union certificates and their banners. The Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, Victorian District design comes from a British certificate of 1866 and was widely used, with minor alterations, in Melbourne, Sydney, Kalgoorlie and Wellington banners.
Modern revival
One of the earliest trade union banners in Melbourne’s revival was Rick Amor’s Australian Postal and Telecommunications Union, 1980. His 1985 AMWU Amalgamated Metal Workers Union banner is in the exhibition.
Geoff Hogg: Victorian Trades Hall Council, 1982-83
Source: Museum Victoria
In 1982 the Australia Council established the Art and Working Life program, which promoted the arts to a wider audience through trade unions. It was in this context, in 1984, that the Victorian Trades Hall Council Arts Workshop was established by Geoff Hogg whose Trades Hall centenary banner, 1982-83, is on display. Artists in the Workshop produced around two dozen banners, including the Hospital Employees’ Federation No2 Branch, the Amalgamated Footwear and Textile Workers’ Union of Australia and the Operative Painters’ & Decorators’ Union of Australia.
The use of photographic sources is a common element in these banners, which seek to depict a range of workers and skills, and to represent men and women workers.