PLATON: ADELAIDE’S GREEK WORKERS’ LEAGUE 173 Platon: Adelaide’s Greek Workers’ League * Toula Nicolacopoulos and George Vassilacopoulos Te year 2007 marks ffy years from the formaton of Adelade’s Greek-Australan workers’ league, Platon. Drawng on the record of the league’s naugural meetng we ofer a snapshot of the hopes and aspratons of the Greek-Australans who dentfed “the problems of mgrant workers”, namely “language, unemployment and a dferent lfestyle” as a central neglected socal ssue wthn Adelade’s organsed communty. Trough a dscusson of the early formatve years we argue, frstly, that n close collab- oraton wth Democrtus and Atlas, the older establshed Greek-Australan workers’ leagues of Melbourne and Sydney, Platon counter-posed an alternatve to the dom- nant vson of mgrant and ethnc communty lfe whch t based on the prncples of mutual ad and collectve self-determnaton. Secondly, we llustrate the role that Platon played n the establshment of strong lnks wth the wder Australan labour and socal movements. Introduction On 4 October 1957, the year n whch the Greek-Australan Lef commenced crcu- laton of the newly establshed Greek language newspaper Neos Kosmos, a dedcated group of Adelade’s Greek-Australans met to form a new assocaton of mgrant work- ers. Te foundng members gathered together at the nvtaton of the “Provsonal Commttee of the Greek Workers’ League” whch proposed that the organsaton be devoted to three broad ams. Te frst was to address the problems that the mgrants were facng, especally overcomng the language barrer and fndng work. Te second was to establsh lnks wth the Australan people generally and, more specfcally, wth Australan workers. Te thrd am was to play a vtal role n educatng mgrants about * We conducted the research for ths paper pursuant to an ARC grant admnstered by the Department of Socal Inqury, Women’s Studes, Labour Studes, Unversty of Adelade and acknowledge the sup- port of the Platon Workers’ League; the Greek Australan Women’s Movement; the Greek Atlas League; the Greek Orthodox Communty of South Australa; the Martme Unon of Australa; the SEARCH Foundaton; the Vctoran Trades Hall Councl; and the Greek Democrtus Workers’ League. Nicolacopoulos, Toula and Vassilacopoulos, George. 2009. Platon: Adelaide's Greek Workers' League. In E. Close, G. Couvalis, G. Frazis, M. Palaktsoglou, and M. Tsianikas (eds.) "Greek Research in Australia: Proceedings of the Biennial International Conference of Greek Studies, Flinders University June 2007", Flinders University Department of Languages - Modern Greek: Adelaide, 173-182. Archived at Flinders University: dspace.flinders.edu.au