The Greek-Australian Unemployed Movement and the Construction of the Migrants' Rights Discourse.

Abstract

This paper will present a brief history of the organised attempts within the Greek-Australian communities to address the problem of high unemployment in the 1950s. Focusing on the formation and work of the Greek Migrants’ Unemployed Committee in Melbourne, we will argue that the Committee’s appeal to migrants’ right to work initiated the social processes that were to draw the Greek-Australian communities into the emerging rights discourse of the times. The political campaigns for the rights of the unemployed consequently paved the way for migrant workers’ formulation of their future demands to the Australian state for equal rights and social justice.