ABLative No.9, Autumn 1989
Writing a history of The Australian Railways Union (NSW
Branch)
Author: Mark Hearn
In 1986 the Australian Railways Union celebrated one hundred years of industrial
unionism on the New South Wales railways. In 1886 a Parramatta Station porter,
William Schey, formed the Amalgamated Railway and Tramway Service
Association, the first attempt to draw all NSW rail employees under one union
banner. ARTSA survived several periods of growth and crisis until the 1917 strike,
when the union collapsed after de-registration. In 1920, the various all-grades rail
unions combined to form the Australian Railways Union (ARU) .
My task has been to shape the various and scattered records of the NSW ARU
into a readable and interesting story. Despite the enormous amount of material
still held in the NSW Branch office, there are important collections in the Noel
Butlin Archives Centre and the Mitchell Library. In particular, the Noel Butlin
Archives Centre has material that fills in crucial gaps in the history of the Branch.
The Noel Butlin Archives Centre has key ARTSA minutes covering the period
from the 1917 strike until the ARU's NSW registration in December 1920. There
are virtually no other surviving sources for the union during this desperate period.
The minutes of the revived ARTSA Sydney Branch record the first meeting held
since the 1917 strike, on February 25, 1918. 'There were twelve members present
so we made a start.' It was a fitful rebirth, marked by recriminations and faction
fighting, which persisted into the mid-1920s.
The Noel Butlin Archives Centre also has State Council minutes covering the
Depression years. Extraordinary times produced extraordinary meetings. From
April 1930, there are 30 pages of transcript covering three crisis interviews
conducted between the Chief Rail Commissioner, W J Cleary, senior Department
officers and officers of the ARU.
The State Council debate which follows the interview transcript reveals the
union's despair in the face of sweeping cuts to staff, wages and hours. While
opposed to the cuts being forced upon them by the Department, the councillors
were also mindful of the heritage of the 1917 strike. As one councillor, Jack
Ferguson, realised, the union's options were severely limited. 'The only method
was strike, but he was not willing to draw others into the martyrdom which must
follow.'
By 1949 Jack Ferguson was the ARU's Secretary and immersed in the bitterly
divisive coal strike.
Records from the ARU's national office detail the efforts made by the national
officers to overturn the NSW Branch's decision to support the Chifley
Government and carry 'black' coal. The records include correspondence from Jack
Watson, a Lithgow guard, who wrote to the local station master refusing to work
in the coal trains.
Members of my family and many of my friends are involved in this dispute, and I
am not prepared to allow any action of mine to cause dissension between us.
For an historian wishing to find out how railworkers felt about their own
experiences (as opposed to the dry search through official edicts and minutes), the
Noel Butlin Archives Centre has some rich material.
Virtually no correspondence survives in NSW ARU records. The Noel Butlin
Archives Centre has national office files which contain correspondence relevant
to NSW affairs, and somehow, in the NSW Branch collection, the detailed
correspondence of one ARU organiser has survived.
Cyril Starkie organised the staff of the Railway Refreshment Rooms during the
1920s. The Railway Refreshment Rooms staff were predominately women who
worked in a neglected section of the Rail Department. They were often prey to the
whims and excesses of the local refreshment room manager.
Kath Turvey worked at Yass Railway Refreshment Rooms in 1928.
I asked the Manageress for a suitable piece of bread to make toast and I was
refused. She said you will have to eat the crusts but I didn't feel like sitting down
to stale crusts of bread and a scrape of butter after polishing and scrubbing floors
all morning. Some of the girls have been up since 2 am.
Most of the Noel Butlin Archives Centre holdings of NSW Branch material relate
to ARTSA and the ARU's early years, covering a period from the early 1900s
until the mid 1930s.
Extensive material covering later decades is retained by the NSW ARU - some 45
archives boxes of assorted papers, plus bound volumes (biblical proportions) of
State Council and Finance Committee minutes and State Secretary's Reports.
There is also a very good collection of photographs and the tapes and summary
sheets of the 1986 oral history project any of these have been partly or wholly
transcribed.
NSW ARE holdings: E89
National Office holdings: N5
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