CHAPTER 5 ABORIGINAL EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT:  COLONISED LABOUR BY BILL THORPE FROM BEYOND INDUSTRIAL SOCIOLOGY, THE WORK OF MEN AND WOMEN (1992)

Claire Williams with Bill Thorpe  North Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

In this chapter Bill Thorpe defines colonised labour firstly as deriving from the seizure of a territory and its people by a major power in order to dominate and exploit the colonised territory and its people economically, politically and culturally. Secondly colonised labour is subordinate to all other forms of labour such as migrant labour.   Thirdly, like slavery colonised labour is suffused with force compared with wage labour. Fourthly, the labour is both desirable and undesirable because the colonisers want to exploit the land and resources most of all, and can regard the people whose cultural and material life is at odds with the colonisers, as an impediment to economic development.  Because of these features, unemployment and underemployment become integral features of the colonised labour condition.