Luba Grigorovitch
Branch Secretary

Fifty years ago today, a Victorian union leader was sent to prison for standing up against tyranny.

The jailing of Clarrie O’Shea triggered Australia’s mass industrial uprising, with around one million Australians participating in a General Strike.

The General Strike came at a pivotal moment in the history of modern Australia.

After nearly twenty years of conservative rule under Menzies, Holt, McEwan and Gorton, Australia was finding its modern, progressive voice.

Our first peoples had finally won the right to vote, support for the Vietnam War was starting to fade following the Tet offensive, and the Beatles were about to drop their seminal Abbey Road album.

The times were a changin’.

Meanwhile, conservative forces were starting to worry that their choke-hold on political power was slipping. They were determined to quell any sense of popular rebellion.

Into this volatile mix strode Clarrie O’Shea – a Melbourne tram conductor, who had been the Secretary of the Victorian Branch of the ATMOEA, the Tramways Union, since 1947.

Clarrie was no shrinking violet. While genial and funny, and a keen punter, he strongly believed that the capitalist system was stacked against working people, and he dedicated his life to upending the injustices he saw around him.

He also believed that workers had an absolute right to strike. So when the courts piled fine upon fine upon fine onto the Tramways Union for taking unauthorised industrial action, he stood firm and refused to pay.

The authorities seized ATMOEA’s bank accounts – but the Union had taken precautions by moving most of its money elsewhere.

Summonsed to the Industrial Court, O’Shea turned up flanked by thousands of workers and unionists.

Before presiding Judge Sir John Kerr (later to become Australia’s most infamous Governor General) he refused to take an oath or to disclose the whereabouts of the union’s remaining funds.

“I do not wish to be sworn,” he said. “I challenge the authority of this court … because I am a paid servant of my members, I am directed to protect their interests at all times.”

“I do not want to hear any speeches from you,” Kerr replied.

After adjourning court for half an hour, Kerr came back to invoke the Industrial Court’s controversial ‘penal powers’, and ordered O’Shea be taken to Pentridge Prison.

He was told he would remain in jail indefinitely – to be freed only when he “purged his contempt”, by revealing where the unions funds had been stashed.

The news spread like wildfire. Thousands of Victorian unionists walked off the job immediately. Workers in other states quickly followed suit – some through organised strikes, many more through wildcat actions.

Soon over one million Australian workers withdrew their labour in protest over the jailing of Clarrie O’Shea, and the use of state power to attack working people.

The situation became untenable for the Federal Government. As the crisis escalated, a mystery ‘philanthropist’ paid ATMOEA’s outstanding fines, breaking the deadlock, and enabling O’Shea to be set free.

Today’s parallels with 1969 are startling.

We now have had conservative rule for 17 of the past 23 years. Across the economy, union density is at historic lows, and the bargaining power of workers has been diminished.

Workers’ wages are barely keeping up with inflation, while jobs are becoming more precarious.

Casualisation of work is rampant, while the much-trumpeted new frontier of the gig economy is little more than a re-badged form of serfdom.

Today, it is commonplace for people to be working two, three or four different jobs just to make ends meet.

The right to strike has been whittled away by successive governments. Last year, striking NSW rail workers – taking legitimate and legal protected industrial action – were forced to go back to work by the Fair Work Commission.

Trade unions have been under relentless attack. The Trade Union Royal Commission spent nearly two years and over $45 million crawling through union records and publicly grilling union officials.

Permanent quasi-judicial bodies such as the Registered Organisations Commission and the ABCC have been established purely to monitor, regulate and disrupt union activities, and to tie union officials in a web of red-tape.

As we have seen through the botched Federal Police raids on the AWU, the close ties between political offices and these bodies has raised serious questions about integrity and the misuse of government power.

That’s why Clarrie O’Shea’s legacy will ring loud this weekend.

The Federal election is our chance to set Australia on a new path.  It’s our chance to take power for the people, to make our scandal-ridden corporate sector accountable, and to restore faith in our public institutions.

This is Australia’s chance, once again, to find its modern, progressive voice.

Luba Grigorovitch
Branch Secretary

This coming May marks an anniversary of monumental importance to the RTBU and indeed to our entire union movement. 

On the 15 May 1969, Clarrie Lyell O’Shea, Secretary of the Victorian Tramways and Motor Omnibus Employees’ Association (ATMOEA), entered a courtroom of the Commonwealth Industrial Court. O’Shea would be ordered to produce his Union’s financial books to determine their ability to pay $11,000 in crippling penal fines for illegal striking.

This was Australia under almost twenty years of conservative government, with some of the most draconian and repressive labour laws in any country in the Western world. The right of working people to strike was effectively criminalised by these penal powers, shackling them to the dictates of the boss and often appalling wages and conditions.

ATMOEA in Victoria was among a number of militant left-wing “rebel” unions that had never accepted being cowed by these penal powers, and had spent the past twenty years doing all they could in united action to educate working people to the nature of the penal powers’ attacks on their rights, and mobilising together to oppose them. O’Shea, a lifelong unionist and militant from the now historically distant Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist), had joined the tramways aged 20 and was very much a product of his fellow workers’ proud trade unionism and traditions as he was a leader of it.  

O’Shea refused to be sworn in on the stand, affirming his responsibility as a unionist to his members’ funds as much as their wages and conditions, and was promptly jailed for contempt by a judge named John Kerr. Thus began the 1969 General Strike of workers across Australia demanding Clarrie O’Shea be freed and the penal powers be abolished.

Within 24 hours, half a million workers were striking and marching in all of Australia’s major cities and towns. The militancy and daring hope of the post-war labour movement, combined with a mass movement of defiance against a war in Vietnam, the students’ power, Aboriginal rights and women’s liberation movements bared their fruits as working people and their allies downed tools and took to the streets across the breadth of an island continent.

Within one week, Clarrie O’Shea was released from Pentridge Prison. The Tramways Union paid not one cent of its penal fines and the penal powers were a dead letter for all time.

This year on 15 May marks 50 years since this historic event. In order to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1969 General Strike victory and Clarrie O’Shea’s example, the RTBU is hosting a commemorative function on the evening of Wednesday 15 May.

With working people and our movement facing more challenges than ever before from the unjust laws and greed of capital and the bosses, 1969 is history we must remember and live more than ever. Together with today’s leaders, historians and veterans of the strike, we’ll remember and celebrate the millions of ordinary men and women who made history and struck a triumphant blow for democracy and the right to strike in Australia – and most important of all, remember the lessons of 1969 that we must break the rules to change them.

I urge all RTBU members and their families to join us for this great event on May 15.

Jeff Ford
V/Line Delegate

Once again V/Line were found again not following their own policies and procedures when it came to vacant positions and recruitment. There were staff in the conductors’ pool, however when a position came up they never received a phone call for an interview.

Therefore, a formal dispute was put in because the correct procedure was not followed. This is not the first time this has happened, and it caused disdain for the individuals involved who were not given the opportunity to interview.  

We are still working to get every position advertised network wide so that everyone in V/Line is aware of what positions are available to apply for.

The first option for the buffets in the new Vlocity trains was sitting at nine meters long. V/Line then came back offering two metres by two metres, so the buffet working party committee set up a risk assessment on the old buffets that are currently in the n-sets.

The risk assessment showed there was hardly enough room in the current buffets, so V/Line therefore came back and offered four metres long, which with the correct design and layout of the new buffets should work out well when the new buffets are finalised.

Another issue that we have also been dealing with is the V/Line shirts. It took a lot of work and negotiation to get the males to be able to order a blue shirt so they didn’t have to cook and sweat in their current shirts that are provided. The lavender colour shirts that staff were having to wear attracted a lot of dirt and dust, not making it a very good look to the public considering they usually are the front-line staff that the public see first.

At the end of the day not many people care about the colour of the shirt, it is the materials they are made from as to whether these shirts are breathable or not. The current shirts are not very breathable and therefore make it uncomfortable to work in. The main thing they need to get right is having a comfortable uniform to work in and not have them made cheaply.

We are hopeful that a uniform working party will be set up to get these shirts done properly once and for all i.e. colour, materials and length.

There was also a new service being introduced to Shepparton and discussion occurred as to where trains would be stabled in Shepparton overnight as well as push backs being involved. There was frustration from the SO3 station staff as they were being required to perform these duties and be in charge of these push backs. The problem was that these duties are not in their job descriptions.

After numerous meetings with management it was agreed they were doing extra duties and responsibilities, so in the next EBA we will have to introduce a new position of an SO4 to compensate all these extra responsibility’s and duties which will affect many other staff in regional areas.

Also in Shepparton there were massive issues for staff to safely perform these new push backs in the Shepparton yard with fencing and lighting that we had agreed in writing from V/Line would be fixed, that had not been fixed yet.

There were issues of trespassers crossing the yard day and night as the current fence is so run down it would not be worth fixing and the last thing that anyone wants is staff dealing with trauma from hitting someone in the yard.

After a few meetings it has now been agreed that the existing fences on either side will be upgraded with razor wire on top of it. There will be extra poles and lighting to be extended at both ends of the yard to light the whole yard up so these new push backs can be done safely.

The new fence and lighting hopefully will keep trespassers out of the yard and help protect V/Lines rolling stock from vandalism and protect our members from any incidents.

Joe Dennis
Organiser

With the Metro Enterprise Agreement in full swing and the V/Line agreement about to begin, our office and Delegates are in for a busy time ahead. Delegates and Organisers continue to visit work places to update as many members as we can. As you can appreciate this is a huge task as most of our members at both Metro and V/line members work rotating rosters, therefore making it impossible for us to catch everyone.  

We will continue to update as many staff members as we can along the way and will arrange meetings at the appropriate times to discuss the agreement as we progress through bargaining.

The Minister for Public Transport Melissa Horne, Public Transport Victoria (PTVs) Alan Fedda, Branch Secretary Luba Grigorovitch, Probe Delegates and I recently met with the CEO of Probe for a walk around of the PTV Call Centre in Latrobe Street. This visit strengthened our relationship with our PTV Call Centre members who were excited to see the Minister in their workplace and shed some light on the many issues at the Call Centre.

Probe’s Enterprise Agreement is also about to expire on 25 April 2019. In conjunction with the National Union of Workers (NUW) and Australian Services Union (ASU), there has been several attempts to get Probe to begin negotiation, but to date they have not cooperated. We will continue to communicate with Probe management in the hope of coming together to begin negotiations for our members.

There was also a recent announcement made regarding a restructure of PTV, Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR) and VicRoads all joining together under one Government department of Transport. The Roads Traffic Management Centre provides priority to trams and buses during disruptions and the consolidation of VicRoads and PTV aims to minimise the impacts on people as well as assist in customer messaging and engagement of future projects. This restructure will help passengers move from point A to B faster by liaising between departments and organising disruptions.

Bryan Evans 
Organiser

Over the last few months, Metro Trains Melbourne (MTM) have ramped up their rhetoric on fatigue and the need to change rosters. They have held information sessions with members, consultation meetings (the RTBU was unavailable that day) and even tried to set up committees in order to quell this so-called imminent risk to health and safety. These are the same rosters that MTM wanted so desperately back in 2012 that may or may not have accidentally been under costed. Is it because MTM are trying to save money?

Before I get accused of being a conspiracy theorist claiming the moon landings aren’t real, the RTBU are turning a blind eye to safety, here is a list of Frequently asked questions from members:

Rolling stock has a roster change process in schedule D, why don’t MTM just use that?

Good question, Schedule D exists specifically for the purpose of altering rosters, it even specifies that fatigue must be factored in to any roster outcome. My best guess is that MTM know too well that the changes they intend to propose won’t be voted up by union members through that process due to a reduction in pay.

Doesn’t the RTBU care about fatigue?

Of course the RTBU cares about fatigue! The health and safety of our members is paramount. The reality is however, that MTM have the tools available to them right now to manage fatigue better if they feel there is an “imminent risk”.

Surely if MTM believed that there were sections of the roster that proposed a significant risk they would simply send people home with pay for the hours affected. Why don’t they? Well either these sections of the roster don’t exist, or they don’t want to be financially worse off. Either way as stated earlier schedule D specifically takes fatigue into consideration during any such change, so why don’t MTM put a proposal on the table?

Why are they doing it during Enterprise Agreement (EA) negotiations?

There are lots of reasons why the company may do it now, potentially there is a fatigue issue, or maybe going through a “fatigue emergency” during an EBA provides the mother of all distractions. Members should be focusing on skills and job security this EBA not a divisive battle over rostering.

If this is a genuine fatigue issue, why is modifying schedule D on Metro’s log of claims?

MTM have identified that they wish to change schedule D to create a more “flexible” process to cater for, among other things, fatigue management. This would enable MTM to make changes with less red tape (red tape being defined as seeking agreement from the members). So to translate, MTM want to change your rosters as easily as possible, with as little input from you as possible.

We recommend RTBU members do not partake or volunteer for any established fatigue committees set up to undermine the existing process.

The reality is, we may, or we may not have a genuine fatigue issue to deal with. The RTBU’s message is simple, if MTM want to change rosters, there is an AGREED process. Cut to the chase, consult, put your cards on the table, propose your changes and members will decide.

If members have any further questions about this, please feel free to give me a call on 0457 006 739.