Registered by Australia Post PRINT POST 306‐181‐0004‐ISSN 0155‐8722 Recorder Official organ of the Melbourne Branch of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History Issue No 263—October 2009 IN THIS EDITION: • Working Class ANZAC Heroes, Paddy Garriy, p. 1 • Barney Cooney, Senator for Victoria 1984‐2002, Rennis Witham, p. 6 • JOHN CUMMINS MEMORIAL FUND, Peter Love p. 2 • Congratulaons to Gwen Goedecke, p. 6 • ‘J.P.M.’ – John Peter Maynes (Part 2), Keith Harvey, p. 3 • Melbourne branch notes and contacts, p. 7 • Noceboard, p. 8 Working Class ANZAC Heroes By Paddy Garriy On the second day of November in 1923, 636 members police officer that fired the fatal bullet has never been of the Victorian Police force went on strike. All were revealed. sacked and replaced by volunteer strikebreakers. The 1928 dispute was very similar to polical aacks on Five years to the day, on the second of November in waterfront unionists in 1998, when ship‐owners, the 1928, and during a marime industrial dispute, some of Federal Government, Arbitraon Court, and State police, the same police strikebreakers were amongst armed again acted in collusion to lock out workers belonging to police protecng waterfront strikebreakers at Princes unions from their workplace. During the 1928 lockout, Pier. On this day the police shot and wounded four the media was very dishonest and totally in the pockets waterside workers. One of them, Allan Whiaker died of ship‐owners and the establishment. This media three months later. constantly praised the ‘free volunteer labour’ and heavily cricised the locked out and starving Despite requests from many concerned union workers. Unionists had no avenues organisaons, no public inquiry was ever to appeal for any social or legal jusce. held. The only inquiry into the shoong was an internal police one and the results In 1928 and again in 1998, Australian of that inquiry have never been released Prime Ministers, Stanley Melbourne Bruce to the public. Despite the police naming and John Winston Howard, played similar the ringleaders of an alleged riot, that roles: aDemp`ng to destroy the they claimed had occurred and which waterfront unions on behalf of waterfront forced them to shoot the workers, not employers. It’s interesng to note that one waterside worker was ever Stanley Bruce was the first Australian quesoned or charged with this mythical Prime Minister to lose his seat in his own riot. electorate and John Howard was the second. The Chief Commissioner of Police, General Sir Thomas Blamey, was well Naonal unemployment in 1928 stood at known at this me to be associated with 11 per cent, but several historians have a secret right wing military organisaon. recorded that because of the dispute, Notoriously an‐worker and unions, he there were unemployment levels of 70 strongly supported the acons of police per cent in the Port Melbourne area. in the shoong of the four unarmed Workers and their families were forced to workers. All Commissioner Blamey’s live in a degrading level of poverty. Barefoot correspondence from 1921 to 1934 was The Argus, Tuesday 29 January 1929, p. 7 and starving children were fed from soup destroyed, when he was dismissed from kitchens at their schools. (Even John his posion because of corrupon. Wren donated 1,000 pounds to the strike fund.) The Coroner’s report into Allan Whiaker's death said it On the waterfront itself, the brothers and fathers of the was ‘Jusfiable homicide ‐ by gun.’ The name of the impoverished children were forced to stand and watch, as armed police escorted ‘free volunteer labour’ (who Recorder No. 263 RECORDER the unionists called ‘scabs’) up the gangways of ships. JOHN CUMMINS MEMORIAL FUND Some migrants were actually recruited to work as free volunteer labour, when ships that brought them to Annual Dinner, by Peter Love Australia docked in Melbourne. When Victorian CFMEU President John Cummins died The majority of Port Melbourne workers were Catholics from a brain tumour in 2006, his family, friends and of Irish decent. The main intent of the authories was to comrades established the John Cummins Memorial Fund. smash the union but Commissioner Blamey and other Although his acvies both within the labour movement right wing conspirators also believed that because of the and the wider community were occasionally Irish content in the ranks of waterside workers, there controversial, many people acknowledged the sincerity might be the possible seeds of a Fenian uprising. The of purpose that drove his industrial militancy and Easter Rebellion in Ireland had taken place only 12 years polical acvism on behalf of building workers and the before. working class communi`es he served. Since the Many waterside workers involved in this dispute establishment of the Fund, many comrades and several volunteered and served during WWI. Allan Whiaker erstwhile adversaries have joined in common cause to only had two brothers, Percy and Cecil. All three brothers back the projects it sponsors. So far it has distributed were at Gallipoli. Percy returned and, like his brother more than $150,000, mostly to the Ausn Hospital for its Allan, worked the Melbourne waterfront. Cecil was killed work with brain tumour paents and their families. in the trenches of France. Allan Whiaker died from the Lesser amounts have been provided to working class police inflicted wound three months aer he was shot, students in the form of scholarships, and to the North on 26 January 1929. Heidelberg Junior Football Club for registraon fees, shorts and socks. Allan Whiaker’s military record shows that he was one The Fund’s third Annual Dinner was held in the funcon of the first Australians to enlist in WWI, that he was centre at the Moonee Valley Racecourse on Friday 28 wounded on the first day of the landing at ANZAC Cove August. At 7.00 pm some seven hundred guests and that he spent eighty days in a military hospital assembled for a night of speeches, eang and drinking, recovering from this wound. However, the print media of music, dancing and a comradely celebraon of the 1928, supporng the shipowners and police, never labour movement’s cultural heritage in its customary menoned that it was an ANZAC hero, wounded on the combinaon of mutuality and sociability. beach at Gallipoli in 1915, who had been shot in the back of the neck by a (sll unknown) Victorian police officer in 1928. James Nagle was another one of the three unionists shot on Princess Pier. He served with the AIF in France during WWI. What sort of a naon is it that would not protect the jobs of returned soldiers and deny them access to any industrial or civil jusce and then shoot them without holding a public inquiry? This era was one with no rights of appeal for workers and total control by the rich and powerful of the polical and judicial systems, as well as the media. Is it too late to correct the history books about this injusce that occurred in our naon’s past? On Sunday, 1st November at 11am, a ceremony will take place, near the spot where the shoong occurred: Beacon Vista – halfway between Staon and Princes Pier. There will be a re‐examinaon of the events leading up to the shoong at Princess Pier and the subsequent death of Allan Whiaker. Aerwards there will be a walking tour of places of interest during the 1928 dispute. A short wake in Whiaker’s honor will be held at Port Di Cummins. Photo by Peter Love Melbourne Bowling Club. Drinks and nibbles will be provided. There is no charge. Aer a vigorous welcome and warm‐up from MC Brian Nankervis, there was a musical interlude from Jack Mancor and Friends before one of the more interesng Further information: 9329 5477 (See also Noticeboard, p. 8) gigs of the night. Mick Cummins, one of John and Di’s two sons, read an open leer ‘To the Australian Workers’ 2 Recorder No. 263 RECORDER that John had wrien when in Pentridge Prison for ‘J.P.M.’ – John Peter Maynes (Part 2) defying a court order not to enter building sites. Mick’s reading of passages from the leer was interspersed By Keith Harvey with the singing of verses from Billy Bragg’s song ‘There is Power in the Union’. It was a very evocave reminder On 15 April 2009, John P. Maynes died. As an ALP that the labour movement is energised by both heart Industrial Grouper, Victorian branch president and and brain. The message certainly arrested the aenon Federal President of the Federated Clerks Union of of the large audience that was, by then, well on the way Australia, he played a controversial role in the trade to a state of convivial lubricaon. union movement in the postwar period. In the second of a two‐part arcle For Recorder, Keith Harvey, a Naonal Di Cummins spoke about the Fund’s objecves and Industrial Officer oF the Australian Services Union, reported on its recent acvies. Aer the entrée, which discusses the life and mes of this historically significant reassured many that they had not bought yet another union official. cket on the rubber chicken circuit, Simon Sheikh, from the on‐line acvist group Get Up delivered the keynote Internal divisions address. Taking the old BLF slogan popularised by John Throughout much of John Maynes’ leadership of the Cummins and his comrades, ‘Dare to Struggle. Dare to Federated Clerks Union (FCU), splits and divisions within Win’ as his theme, Simon talked about Get Up’s the labour movement were frequent. In parcular, the approach to campaigning and the connuing need for 1955 split in the ALP led to years of bierness.