1951

...wage rates had got so low in this country that even the Arbitration Court bought down a wage rise of 15 per cent. The waterfront authority brought down a decision: nine per cent, take it or leave it.

– Ex NZ Waterside Workers' Union leader Jock Barnes on events before the dispute began

I got knocked over myself actually, I got a punch, and I ended up on the ground ... I could hear this funny pinging noise. I'd never heard it before, never heard it since. It was unfortunately the wooden batons on the skulls of some of the watersiders.

– Ex policeman Graeme Dallow, on confrontations between waterside workers and police during a 1 June 1951 march on Queen St

...when the '51 lockout was completed, and the employers bought out their blacklist, all the good delegates were on the blacklist and were never allowed to be employed on the waterfront again. Those are the sort of bitter things that still stay with me. Because these were honest men, good workers, who just happened to be able to negotiate a bit better than others.

– Lyttelton Wwatersider Baden Norris

I saw families broken up, I saw brother fighting brother, marriages breaking up. The whole thing was a very very bitter pill to swallow. And then to be branded as an enemy of the country when only just a few years earlier they waved flags and called you a hero, was pretty difficult to take.

– Lyttelton watersider Baden Norris