Dalfram DisputePrint Page

The plaque commemorates the Dalfram Dispute of 1938. 

The Illawarra Branch of the Society for the Study of Labour History has a great interest in the Dalfram dispute. In December 2006 the Society erected the plaque to commemorate that dispute, located near the Number 4 Jetty at Port Kembla, where that historic action occurred. Her Excellency Madam Fu Yng, the Chinese Ambassador, came from Canberra to unveil the plaque.

The Dalfram Dispute of 1938 occured 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.

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