lil JSSN for Study (ii) Contents Page Australian-CanadianLabour HistoryConference .... Michael Hess 1 The Establishmentof the West Australian Locomotive Engine Drivers', Firemen and Cleaners' Union ....Les Young 3 The 1969 Kwinana Metal Trades Construction Agreement .... Owen Salmon 14 The Pilbara PastoralWorkers' Uprising of 1946 ....Michael Hess 18 Memoriesof My Life as a TradeUnion Official ....Don Cooley 35 The Trades andLabour Council's Oral HistoryProject ....Stuart Reid 61 Recollections of the Union of AustralianWomen in WesternAustralia .... Madge Cope 72 Book Reviews VictoriaHobbs, But Westward Look! Nursingin Western Australia1829-1979, Perth, UWA Press, 1989 .... Doreen McCarthy 76 Lenore Layman and Julian Goddard,Organi se! Labour: A Yisual Record, Perth TLC. 1988 .... W.S. Latter 77 Vic Williams(ed), Eureka andBeyond: M ontyMil1er, his own story, Perth, Lone Hand Press, 1988 .... Duncan Cameron 78 Research Notes The 1911 Miners Strikeat Collie Burn ....W.S. Latter 79 Acknowledgements As well as those listed above who contributed to this edition acknowledgement is due to fellow workers who made suggestions, typed, proofread and supported the publication; Lorna Fitch, Penny Fayle, V.Helene Cartwright Papers in Labour HistoryNo.2, is available fromthe Office of the Departmentof Industrial Relations.University of WesternAustralia for $10.00. It is anticipated that Papers in Labour History No.3 will be available for a similar cost in April 1989. Correspondenceand proposedcontributions should be addressed to The Editor. Papers in Labour History,Department of IndustrialRelations, University of WesternAustralia, Nedlands, WA 6009. (iii) Papers in Labour Historyseeks to publish material of a serious natureabout the historical development of the Labour Movement, with particularemphasis on Western Australia. It is intended to carry a balance of contributions from students and veterans of the Labour Movement. Naturally this raises controversialissues and no apology is made forthe fact that few readers willbe able to agree with all the views expressed here. While the editor has made suggestions regardingeach of the contributions these have been of a stylistic nature and have not been intended in any way to interfere with the expression of the views of the authors. One of thegreat problems of the history of the labourmovement is that fewactivists have the timeor inclination to set down their own versions of events. Some feel that it is a matter of "blowing their own trumpet"and others are simply too busy with current issues. The gap this leaves in the historical record is considerable. This edition carries two articles writtenby labour movement veterans in Don Cooley and Les Young. Don's contribution is a selection of memoriesof his 25 years as a full-time trade union official. Les writes of the establishment of WA's railways and the early industrial strugglesin the industryin which he was an officialfor 30 years. Both articleshave much information and give more of a feeling forthe events than would be thecase ifwritten by dispassionate observers. Owen Salmon, who is now an Industrial Relations Commissioner, has also reached into his fund of labour movement recollections toprovide an account of the creationof the 1969 Kwinana Metal Trades Construction Agreement. Owen was intimately involved in the negotiation of this agreement as a union officialand he casts an interesting light on these relatively recent events of WA history. Madge Cape's contributionis drawn from one of our Society for the Study of Labour History meetings and presents her recollections of the Perth Branch of the Union of Australian Women. The UAW was in the forefrontof thestruggle for peace and took up a range of issues of immediate concernto women at a time when women were supposed to be neither seen nor heard in Australianindustrial and political life. Stuart Reid's article is also drawn from a SSLH meeting and deals with the TLC's oral history project. Stuart has been responsible forinterviewing labour movement veterans and here presents some snippets fromthe many hours of interviews which were completed. I have also taken the liberty of contributing two pieces myself. The first is a brief account of the Australian-Canadian Labour HistoryConference held at theUniversity of Sydney last December. This was the first time the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History has organised a national conference and many worthwhile papers were given. The second of my contributionsis the paper I read at this conference on the 1946-9 Pilbara pastoral workers' strike. I thought it was a paper of particularinterest to WA readersand hence have included it here. Finally we have our regular Research Notes with Bill Latter's study of events at Collie Bum in 1911 being the only new peice of work to come to notice. We have also included new section of Book Reviews with DorreenMcCarthy notingthe reprintingof Victoria Hoobs' classic historyof nursing in WA, while Bill looks at Lenore Layman and Julian Goddard's visual history of WA labour and Duncan Cameron discusses Vic Williams presentation of Monty Miller's autobiolgraphicalmaterial. Hopefullythis sectionwill continueas more WA labour movement history findsits way into print. 1 Australian-Canadian Labour History Conference* Michae1 Hesst Although the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History (ASSLH) has been in existence for some threedecades it has never beforeattempted to hold a conference on this scale. Not only did the presence of people from all States make this the firstnational gatheringof labour historians but the participation of Canadian scholars added an international dimension. The work of organising this landmarkevent fellheavily upon the officebearers of the Sydney Branch of the ASSLH and they are to be particularlycommended fortheir splendid efforts. I attended to give a paper on the 1946 Pilbarapastoral workers' strike,which is reproduced elsewhere in this edition of Papers in Labour History, and to represent our recentlyformed Perth Branch of the ASSLH at the national executive meeting which took place during the same week. That meeting formallyaccepted us as a Branch of the Society with representatives fromother States congratulating us on thestart we have made. I had taken a fewcopies of our Papers in Labour HistoryNo.2 with me to pass on to other Branches. These were well received and I was surprisedat the additional demand from individuals forpersonal copies. A number of the Canadians also requested copies. I was not alone in representingthe West as Realene Francis, then of Mure.loch University, also gave a paper on "Skill, Gender, Unions and the Commonwealth Arbitration Court - A Case Study of the Australian Printing Industry, 1925-1939". Vic Williams was also present for the Sydney launch of his book, Eurekaand Beyond: MontyMiller ... His Own Story. This was conducted during the first dayof the conference with many present expressing an interest and quite a fewbooks being sold. So WA made quite an impact The conferenceitself was very successfulwith papers being of a high standardand coveringthe whole ambit of labour history. The papers were organised into the following sections: Aboriginal Peoples, Oral History, Gender and the Working Class, Women Teachers, Work Relations in Colonial Times, Sources and Methods in Labour History, Railway Unionism, The Role of the State, Compulsory Arbitration, Depressionand War,and Labour and Politics. My understanding is that the organisers of the Conference intendto publish some of thepapers, although just what formthat publication will take is yet to be determined. In the meantimeif any Branch members are interested in reading particular papers I have copies of most andwill behappy to make them available. One of the interesting aspects of the Conference, fromour Branch's point of view, was the marked * Held at the University of Sydney, 12-18 December 1988. t Departmentof IndustrialRelations, University of Western Australia. 2 difference in character between the various Branches. The two biggest Branches, Sydney and Melbourne are indicative of these differences. The Sydney Branch seems to be pretty much a University/College affair and carries the administrative burdens of the ASSLH as well as the publication of thejournal, Labour History. In addition it has its own less ambitiouspublication, he Hummer, which is used to keep members informedof events and research in the fieldand to reproduce talks given to the Branch. The Melbourne Branch has a less scholarly orientation with labour movement veterans and activists playing a bigger role. Its publication talcesthe formof a newspaper with well illustrated short pieces dealing with historical events of significance for the labour movement. With such differencesin orientation the discussions at the executive meeting were quite animated. One point of significancefor us was the proposal, by Adelaide and Perth Branches, that the ASSLH ought to reflect a national character in place of the current domination of NSW based academics. Thegeneral thrust of this argument was accepted by executive and one specificproposal to come fromit was that the editorial boardof Labour Historyought to include scholars fromall States. I proposedthat Lenore Layman of Murdoch University would be an appropriate person to represent WA in this role. Whilethe Conferencewas successful it is clear that events at this national and internationallevel cannot be held often. The real strengthof the ASSLH lies, not at this level, but in its