The Australian Worker

The Australian Worker was a newspaper produced in Sydney, New South Wales for the Australian Workers' Union. It was published from 1890 to 1950.

History

The newspaper had its origin in The Hummer, "Official organ of the Associated Riverina Workers", a newspaper produced in Wagga Wagga in the depths of the 1890s depression on 19 October 1891. The paper was jointly funded by the Wagga branches of the Amalgamated Shearers' Union of Australasia and the General Workers' Union, which merged in 1894 to form the Australian Workers' Union. The Hummer was the first union-owned newspaper in New South Wales (there was a privately owned pro-labor paper called The Shearers' Record published by Andrews and Taylor), and was born out of the perception that many or most mainstream newspaper proprietors and editors were sufficiently hostile to Unionism to suppress or mutilate letters and news items sympathetic to workers' rights, and to come down heavily on the side of business owners in any dispute. The men behind this bold move, which may have contravened the constitutions of the unions involved, were Wagga Branch officials Walter Head, Arthur Rae and J. J. Mooney. Later a share was sold to the Labor Electoral League. and the last issue 3 September 1892.

An arrangement was arrived at with a similar institution, The Worker, founded by William Lane in Brisbane in 1890, to share resources, and the resulting paper The Worker, "with which is incorporated The Hummer" in Wagga, associated with The Worker in Brisbane, Queensland began in Sydney on 24 September 1892, with each company supplying half the content of each issue.

Wagga Branch continued the publication of The Worker until March 1893, when six other N.S.W. Branches agreed to join in, and the plant was removed to either 1 Palmer Street Woolloomooloo or 217 Palmer Street, Sydney.