Dalfram Dispute (1937)

The Dalfram Dispute of 1938 went down in history when Port Kembla workers refused to load pig iron onto the steamship Dalfram headed for Japan. At the time, Japan was at war with China and in making this decision an important bond was formed between the Waterside Workers Federation (WWF), the Illawarra Labour Movement and the People’s Republic of China. The WWF members believed that the ‘pig iron’ would come back to Australia in bombs and steel, and that the Japanese would use it against the Chinese in Manchuria. It was during the Dalfram Dispute that the title ‘Pig Iron Bob’ was coined in reference to the then Attorney General Robert Menzies.