One of the biggest industrial confrontations in New Zealand history (known as the 1951 Waterfront Strike or Lockout, depending on your perspective) began on 13 February 1951. It lasted 151 days, and at its peak involved 22,000 workers clashing violently with the New Zealand government. More information on the dispute can be found here: www.nzhistory.net.nz/politics/the-1951-waterfront-dispute

A week after the dispute began the National government declared a state of emergency. The 1951 Waterfront Strike Emergency Regulations were passed, giving police sweeping powers of search and arrest. Assisting strikers and their families (such as giving them food) was made an offence, as was the printing of union posters or pamphlets.

On the night of 18 March police found hundreds of these gummed-up flyers stuck around Wellington, Khandallah, Petone and Lower Hutt. Bearing the New Zealand Government's Coat of Arms and the words 'Issued by the New Zealand Department of Health', the now infamous design called on workers not to 'scab' (the term for strike-breakers). The flyer subverted a 1946 health flyer on disease by using the same image, and in doing so, lead to a major police investigation. Government employees were investigated; commercial printers and paper merchants across the city interviewed; and houses of unionists raided.

"We got a printer in Courtenay Place to print it on quality art paper with a gummed back, and he let us use his press after hours," noted the designer of the poster 50 years later. "I was editing the 'Public Service Journal' at the time and I got the blocks from the Department of Health, so that the coat of arms - and the rat itself - was paid for by the Health Department."

The flyer comes from three large files of pamphlets kept by the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, and includes hundreds of other home-printed newsletters, flyers and strike ephemera.

Archives Reference: ADMO 21007 W5595 Box 3 25/9/20/8 Vol.3 www.archway.archives.govt.nz/ViewFullItem.do?code=10074978

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