(30 Recorder CQ3 MELBOURNE BRANCH AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF LABOUR HISTORY Registered for Posting as a Periodical - Category B - Reg.No,V8H1331 Price; 20 cents Nu-ber 119 EDITORIAL November, 1?82 Annual General Meeting The meeting on Tuesday, Hth December will be our Annual General Meeting at which office bearers will be elected for 1983. The positions to lie filled are President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer and Executive members. Because of the onset of the Christmas holidays the meeting has been brought forward One week. The Agenda for the meeting is; 1. Report on Labour History Conference - Peter Love 2. Report on year's activities of Melbourne Branch - Secretary ■/ 3. Election of office bearers of Melbourne Branch " A, Discussion of plans for Labour Day, 1983 5. General business. The meeting will be held as usual in the offices of the Australian Insurance Employees' Union at 105 Queen Street, Melbourne at 7.A5p.m. Obituary - Victor Arnold The death occurred on Sunday, November 7 of Victor Arnold, former secretary of Actors' Equity (Victorian Branch). Victor retired on October 8, 1982. He had a long, hard and fruitful life connected with the development of better conditions for all those who worked in T.V, theatre, ballet and radio. Victor was active in the New Theatre and Realist Films from their inception. He travelled around Australia organising shows; acting in several of them. The Realist Film Unit was responsible for the first showing of famous Soviet films such as Battleship Potemkin. 1 »age..2 |_S-S-Q-|=B_i=i November, 1982 Victor led the Victorian section of Actors' Equity from 1958. One Squity campaign to establish a quota of Australian content on T.V. was reluctantly accepted tsy T.V. stations. Another campaign was the fight ;o get repeat fees for performers. .yictpr had a high reputation. Due to his knowledge of the industry le was a highly skilled negotiator. We extend our condolences to his wife Joan who worked with him in Equity. 0." Silver * * tt k History of Melbotirno's Radical Bookshops 1983 is the 50th Anniversary of the foundation of the International Jookshop Pty.htd. To mark the occasion the International Bookshop has sommissioned a history of Melbourne's radical bookshops since the 1890's. Andrades, Rawsons and many smaller bookshops have sprung up in and iround the radical social and political movements. There was the Victory lookshop, the, i^iivil.. in Bal.larat and the Peoples' Bookshop in Richmond, [nfornatdon is recuix-ed about the people who worked in these shops, the type >f customers and vjhat sort of books they published and sold. The author, John Sendy, can be contacted through the International book- ihop at 17 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne. a' ^ ft [istory walk through North end VJest Melbourne North Melbourne Association conducted a most successful history walk .hrough North and West Melbourne on Sunday, November 7 last. The tour plan worked out a series of history laden trails leading through itreetscapes fashioned in the Victorian era such as Victoria Crescent, with .ts line of high terraces, shops, churches and schools bearing the mould of .ast century - a veritable living museum. Exhibitions of memorabilia at North Melbourne railway station. King Street school and Municipal Library illustrated the unifying theme of the explorat- on viz: the recognition of the working people who built and labored in- the 1 ,rea in the formative periods Documents and photos of industrial formation, and trade union members and. Page...3 B=S=:Q=Q=S=B=M November 1982 their struggles, detailing the significance of the great railway terminal with its loco sheds, workshops and the thousands of railway workers who dwelt in the suburbs, filled in the picture. Children's art and school student's essays on their concept of the neighbourhood and current reality, refreshingly merged past and present. - The contingents of strollers all met at the Town Hall, where the local band played nostalgic period music, and a meeting of around 250 heard Evan Walker M.L.C., Commissioner Thorley, Melbourne City Council, express the sentiments of celebration and the lessons of a unique event, ^ „ , Jim Garvie John Cain the first « His life and Works The October; meeting of the Melbourne Branch of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History was addressed by Kate White, author of the recently published biography of John Cain Senior. Kate spoke briefly about her book and the difficulties she encountered finding the necessary records ftnd sources to write the more conventional sort of biography. In retrospect she feels that the book would have been strengthened by paying closer attention to changes in the wider Victorian cdmnunity and her more recent stury of the Federated Ironworker's Union has given her a new understanding of the trade union movement that she feels would have altered her emphasis in the Cain biography. In particular she has gained a deeper appreciation of the critical blow dealt to the movement's confidence in the Arbitration System and its polit ical leadership by the enforced wage reductions during the depression quite apart from the material hardship they created. Nevertheless her book represents one of the first sustained and detailed account of the fortunes of the Labour movement in Victoriq over four decades and was therefore of particular interest to the members, A long and lively' discussion followed Kate's brief introduction. There was, understandably, much interest in Gain's suppressed origins, the possible fate of his 'papers' and his relationship with the present Premier, but almost all of those present had fascinating contributions to 'age...4 November, 1 lake to the story themselves, A number of Gain anecdotes were recounted and there was a long discu la to whether Cain could have taken steps to prevent "the Split" and rhether he was too much of the pragmatist and insufficiently committed ;he ideals of socialism. Inevitably talk turned to the ever fascinating John Wren, the extent lis power, and who was or was not in his power. Kate was of the view that he rarely received direct benefits for his sontributions but Fred Farrall had the last word on the matter when he lointed out that Collingwood had never won a premiership since Wren die Carolyn Rasmussen * 'o Freeze or not to Freeze - that is the question If high wages cause unemployment, the great depression of the 1930's 'ould have ended on February 1st, 1931. On that day a 10 per cent cut in wages imposed by the Arbitration •ojwnission took effect. Lets turn back the clock to those years and see what we can learn fo: oday. In September, 1929, wages reached their highest ever peak up to that he average weighted nominal weekly rate for a male worker was $10.15 ai 'oaen (there was no equal pay for the sexes in those days) $5.41» s well as the 10 per cent cut wages fell a further 10 per cent because n automatic adjustment to falling prices. By December 1933, wages were 20$ less than in 1929 - $8.06 (males) ai 4»35 (females). If Mr.Fraser and Mr.Howard and the chorus of voices who almost deafei oday with the theme "a wage rise for one worker is the loss of a job f( mother" are correct, this dramatic cut in wages should have solved the roblem of unemployment. The very reverse was the case. In 1929, Unions reported that 11.1$ of their members were unemployed, n 1932, they reported that this figure had groxm to 29$. It was not until the census of 1933, that the full horror of the epression was revealed in figures which embraced the whole population. .1 Page..5 November, 1932 The result showed that A81,0U persons were unemployed (and this figure excluded those on sustenance or relief work). 1035 said they had been unemployed for over 4 years - 18.9? between 3 and 4- years and a further 18.2? for up to 3 years. The term »breadwinner' in those days was generally taken to. mean the sole income earner in a family. ' The Census results showed that this figure was 3,155,000 in the population of 1'he day of 6,656,000, 13.3? of the male breadwinners stated they had received no income for 1933, a further 24.3? less than $2.00 per week and 16.5? on $2.00 to $4.00 „ per week. of female breadwinners had either no income or only a maximum of under < $4.00 per week. Unemployment remained at a high level until enlistments and war took over from 1941 onwards. In his Budget speech on 7th September, 1945, the late J.B.Chifley said th^ war production required the use of s- ' 262,000 men and women previously unemployed and 117,000 who would normallj have retired or not been seeking employment. ^fhat happened to wages? They remained depressed below 1929 levels vntxl December 1941 when males were receiving $10.43 and women $5.82 per week. The 1931 wage cuts were a disaster for working people. They prolonged the Depression and deepened the hardship and suffering of many thousands of families. If we allow such a'sollution' to be foisted on us today it will cause even greater hardship as the cost of living continues to rise. Solutions to the Denression « Decisions of Fifty years ago Wage Cut - 22nd January. 1931 The Commonwealth Court of Arbitration after a protracted hearing awarded a 10 per cent reduction in all railway wages which were the subject of the case, operative from the 1st February, 1931.