 He played a leading party in the 1891 strike, during which time he was in Queensland.He became secretary of the Shearers' Union's Bourke branch and a member of the Labor Party in 1894, and helped to draft the rules for the new Australian Workers' Union when the shearers' and labourers' unions amalgamated in the same year; he continued as secretary of the AWU's Bourke branch thereafter.He was general secretary of the AWU from 1900 to 1911.