Union Bannerette - Tuckpointers

By Neale Towart

The bannerettes which usually fronted each Union’s parade entry seem to have been first produced in 1910. The individual unions and societies had their own large display banners for the parades – often the only time they would have been carried outdoors, but the Eight Hour Day Committee produced the small bannerettes. They were made for unions and societies who were members of the Eight Hour Day Committee and parade, and were funded from the fees paid by the unions each year to participate. As the bannerettes were one of the few things that unions had that were matching, they brought cohesion to the parade.

The Tuckpointers Society seems to have been affiliated with the Labor Council and presumably to the Eight Hour Day Committee from 1913-15. Tuckpointing is a way of using two contrasting colours of mortar in the mortar joints of brickwork, with one colour matching the bricks themselves to give an artificial impression that very fine joints have been made. Sometimes we see “pointing”, which is repairing defects in brickwork due to weathering or damage to the mortar work.

Tuckpointers probably became part of the United Operative Bricklayers Trade Society of New South Wales who amalgamated with the Building Workers Industrial Union after World War II.