"WE WANT to live on our land, our way" declared the Gurindji strike leader Vincent Lingiari in August 1966.

But to Lingiari, and the Gurindji people he represented, advancing such a demand even a few months previously would have seemed like a distant dream - such were the appalling conditions Aboriginal workers contended with.

As late as 1946, there were no wage rates set for Aborigines. Bosses could pay them what they liked. In 1944, an Industrial Relations Commission judge refused to even hear a case for the inclusion of Aboriginal workers in the Federal Pastoral Award.

Until the late 1960s, it was illegal to pay Aboriginal workers above a certain specified amount of goods or money, but there were no minimum conditions of employment.

A campaign by the North Australian Workers Union won formal pay equality for Aboriginal workers in 1966, but a racist "slow worker" clause, a two-year delay on implementation and general government indifference meant that things weren't getting better.

Enough was enough for Aboriginal workers. Despite their union's support, the pastoralists, the legal system and the government continued to make it plain - Aborigines are second-class citizens. They don't deserve to be paid as much as whites, and their land can be stolen with impunity by the bosses.

The Wave Hill cattle station where Lingiari worked was owned by the British-based Vestey corporation, which was at the time one of the largest land owners in Australia, controlling around 20,000 square miles of the Northern Territory.

On 1 May 1966, stockmen at the Newcastle Waters stations walked off the job demanding equal pay, followed in August by workers at the Wave Hill cattle station, where 200 Aborigines set up a strike camp at Daguragu (Wattie Creek).

What started as a strike over wages soon expanded into a struggle against the myriad injustices perpetrated by white bosses towards Aborigines - in particular the demand for land rights. In March 1967, a petition was sent to the Governor General demanding that 500 of the 6,000 square miles of the station be returned to the Gurindji people.

As solid and determined as the strike was, an enemy as powerful as Vestey corporation could not be defeated, and land rights won, without broader solidarity and support coming from workers elsewhere.

This proved forthcoming. Many of the predominantly white workers in the cities were quick to recognise a common enemy in the Vestey corporation, and identified many of their own grievances in the struggles of the Aboriginal workers.

The fact that the lowest-paid white workers in the country were pastoral workers on the Northern Territory stations made it pretty clear how the bosses use racism to keep all workers' wages down.

The outpouring of solidarity for the Gurindji people from city workers proved to be a fantastic demonstration of how working class struggle is central to shattering racism and winning gains for the oppressed.

The Actors Equity union, in conjunction with the Communist Party, organised a national speaking tour in October 1966, during which Aboriginal leaders spoke about the strike at workers' meetings around the country. The Waterside Workers Federation donated $10,000 to the strike fund, and 400 carpenters in Sydney contributed a weekly levy to help the strikers. A thousand students rallied in Melbourne in support of the Gurindji land claim. Many other unions organised rallies and workplace meetings and raised money.

This solidarity gave enormous weight to the Gurindji struggle, and prevented the government and pastoralists being able to defeat the strike through physical force or intimidation, which had been their preferred method for dealing with Aboriginal resistance previously.

In a sign of how panicked the bosses were, in late 1966 the Northern Territory government offered the strikers a 125 per cent wage rise, but the offer was promptly rejected in favour of pursuing the demand for full equal pay. In 1967, the Gurindji were offered a miserable eight square miles of land by the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs W.C. Wentworth, but again the offer was refused by the strikers.

Only after nine years of campaigning were most of the Gurindjis' demands finally conceded and some Aboriginal land rights recognised in law.

The crucial factors in this long-awaited, if limited, victory were the determination of the Aboriginal people to keep fighting and the tremendous solidarity this defiant struggle generated in the cities.

Forty years later, Aboriginal people continue to be denied any meaningful control over their land. Worse still, the government's plans to increase lucrative uranium exports suggests a renewed racist campaign against Aboriginal land rights is in the offing.

But the power that organised workers have is as strong as it was in the 1960s, and the potential for solidarity between black and white workers is still as possible and necessary as ever.