Union Activities and Colonial Politics
Watson was a founding member of the New South Wales Labor Party in 1891. He was an active trade unionist, and became Vice-President of the Sydney Trades and Labour Council in January 1892. In June 1892, he settled a dispute between the TLC and the Labor Party and as a result became the president of the council and chairman of the party. In 1893 and 1894, he worked hard to resolve the debate over the solidarity pledge and established the Labor Party's basic practices, including the sovereignty of the party conference, caucus solidarity, the pledge required of parliamentarians and the powerful role of the extra-parliamentary executive. In 1894 Watson was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for the country seat of Young.
Labor at this time had a policy of "support in return for concessions," and Watson voted with his colleagues to keep the Free Trade Premier, Sir George Reid, in office. After the 1898 election, Watson and Labor leader James McGowen decided to keep the Reid government in office so that it could complete the work of establishing Federation.
Read more about this topic: Chris Watson
Famous quotes containing the words union, activities, colonial and/or politics:
“These semi-traitors [Union generals who were not hostile to slavery] must be watched.—Let us be careful who become army leaders in the reorganized army at the end of this Rebellion. The man who thinks that the perpetuity of slavery is essential to the existence of the Union, is unfit to be trusted. The deadliest enemy the Union has is slavery—in fact, its only enemy.”
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“Both gossip and joking are intrinsically valuable activities. Both are essentially social activities that strengthen interpersonal bonds—we do not tell jokes and gossip to ourselves. As popular activities that evade social restrictions, they often refer to topics that are inaccessible to serious public discussion. Gossip and joking often appear together: when we gossip we usually tell jokes and when we are joking we often gossip as well.”
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“The North will at least preserve your flesh for you; Northerners are pale for good and all. There’s very little difference between a dead Swede and a young man who’s had a bad night. But the Colonial is full of maggots the day after he gets off the boat.”
—Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961)
“Until politics are a branch of science we shall do well to regard political and social reforms as experiments rather than short-cuts to the millennium.”
—J.B.S. (John Burdon Sanderson)