The Big Blue - Snapshots of the 1951 Waterfront Lockout (Paperback, Illustrated edition)

In working-class parlance a 'blue' was the colloquial term used for an industrial disruption - a strike or a lockout. The 1951 waterfront lockout was, up until that time, the biggest 'blue' of them all. It lasted 151 days and affected 22,000 workers in a population of one million. It had a major impact on the history of trade unions and the progressive left in New Zealand. In 2001 the Trade Union History Project ran a seminar in Wellington to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the lockout. This anthology is the end result of that event.