Bakeries are never far from the headlines, it seems in Canberra, with a commercial bakery hauled before the ACT new specialised industrial court on Tuesday, after a customer was hit by a prime mover while picking up stale bread. Fifty years ago today, according to the Canberra Times, members of the ACT branch of the Bakers' Union were in the news for defying a court order to return to work.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The issue 50 years ago was not work safety but a strike over pay and conditions, even though the bakers had been threatened that a bans and limitations clause would he inserted in the Bakers' Award.
At the time, a nationwide campaign to place a black ban on products of the Tip Top bakery was under way.
The trouble began the previous Monday when bakers at the Tip Top bakery in Canberra struck over conditions and the failure of the company to reinstate the secretary organiser of the union, Mr T P Kerr.
On Wednesday night the Trades and Labour Council gave its full support to the campaign and decided to approach the Australian Council of Trade Unions and state trades and labour councils to help in a campaign to ban the company's
The parties were called to a Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission hearing.
The bakery management had filed an application for a direction to return to work, and for a bans and limitations clause (which makes a union immediately liable to fines for strikes and bans) to be inserted in the Bakers' Award.
Commissioner Findlay, after hearing the dispute, said, "It is very apparent to me that this strike should never have occurred.
"My decision on the application for a bans clause will be deferred for the time being, but if the men do not return to work this clause will be inserted in the Bakers' Award."
At a hastily convened meeting after the hearing, the bakers decided to defy Mr Findlay.
The Tip Top Bakery has maintained normal supplies of bread by bringing in
Some of these men are vendors of Tip Top bread. Directors of the ACT Bread Distributors Co-operative Society Limited said yesterday that vendors would continue to work.
