Unemployed workers’ organisations, including the NUWM - camp and district circulars and bulletins; Gisborne, Napier and Hastings., 1933 - 1934

This series documents Oliver Bennett Young Gregory’s (1909 – 1974), association with the National Unemployed Workers Movement (NUWM). The series includes reports, minutes and account books, flyers, newsletters and correspondence. During the depression unemployment in New Zealand rose to around 79,400 by September 1933. Many unemployed men were placed in relief camps from which they were engaged in labouring work for local bodies. Conditions in the relief camps were so primitive they were often described as slave camps and men were not paid standard wage rates for the work they undertook. Various attempts were made to organise the unemployed into union type organisations, the most important and successful being the National Unemployed Workers Movement (NUWM). Support and leadership for the NUWM came from the Communist Party and included Leo Sim as National Treasurer for a time. The NUWM organized anti-camp councils in relief camps throughout the country, to fight for better conditions and standard pay rates. Most of the papers here relate to the Gisborne Branch of the NUWM which in January 1934 organised a two month strike by relief workers and a protest march known as The Hunger March from Gisborne to Wellington to protest against conditions in the relief camps. Oliver Gregory, a bricklayer, was an active member of both the Communist Party and the Gisborne Branch of the NUWM. During the latter part of 1934 Gregory appears to have been a national organiser of the NUWM and toured parts of the North Island, visiting relief camps and encouraging men to join the movement. The University also holds a typescript of an interview with Gregory regarding the Hunger March see MSS & Archives A–122.