When we went looking for ETU members who were soldiers in the Great War, it soon became clear that they were proud ANZACS. They were leaders and larrikins, brave men with little recognition. Lest we forget. The Price He Paid The ETU’s Owen Hughes is one of those soldiers who survived the Great War; now,…
The glass river began to flow when there was no other like it in the Southern Hemisphere. Those working along its banks settled into small communities with cultures different from community to community. Through the years those glassmakers grew old together became lifelong friends, almost siblings even and in many cases their children followed them…
In the early hours of Saturday morning two rows of canvas covered stalls are placed along the middle of the widest high street in the North of England. It’s market day in Stockton. The air is icy and the black clouds are fat and heavy looking. It doesn’t seem to matter that snow is…
A Unionist View of the Royal Commission into the Building Industry. Although the Royal Commission into the Building Industry began in 2001 and concluded in 2003, it’s investigations unfolded mostly in 2002 and the following essay is an account of the observations and experiences of me, a rank and file electrical trades’ unionist who followed…
I left school in September 1965, one month before my sixteenth birthday, and went to work as an apprentice at a heavy engineering firm called Head Wrightson’s. How exciting for me; no longer a school kid, I was working! On my first day at the HW apprentice school, I sat, wide eyed, with fifty other…
The ETU and Its Industrial Group In the early part of the twentieth century communism became a much feared political and industrial force. Communists were infiltrating unions and, in some cases, taking control. ETU member, John Pittle summed it up this way; “It was a fight of who’s going to represent the workers, the Communist…
My Dad Cecil Sanders and Electromagnetic Radiation Cecil Sanders is remembered as a kind, caring person would help anyone. His daughter Kristina still remembers her father as someone who couldn’t go past a pub without having a drink. She remembers the smell of Old Spice after-shave, the Brylcreem in his hair, and a comb in…
The Circles of Industrial Relations Industrial relations came out of the Industrial Revolution having always been shaped by the economic models and the politics of the day. The industrial revolution occurred between 1760-1840. At the same, Scottish economist, Adam Smith’s model of liberal economics laid the foundations for Capitalism as we know it (1776). Industrialisation…
The ETU and Award Restructuring ACTU: Australian Council of Trade UnionsAMWU: Amalgamated Metal Workers UnionETU: Electrical Trades UnionMTFU: Metal Trades Federation of UnionsMTIA: Metal Trades Association of Australia While doing some cataloguing for our ETU archive, I came across a press release by a Liberal politician taking the opportunity to stick the knife into my…
Freddy Hooks When a workplace accident happens, it’s very hard to empathise or understand the horrors of the moment until you hear it told by those who were there. In this story, Fred Cowie’s son and his close mate Mick Law remember those days and how after an horrific accident Fred Cowie not only survived…