Bachelor of Arts History & Politics

Diploma of Professional Writing & Editing

Ken Purdham

ETU Vic historian

A Century of Struggle documents the growth of the Electrical Trades Union of Victoria from its inception in 1902 until 2002. It follows the growth of the union in Australian society via its documents and anecdotes, through the voice of its members. This history highlights the growing influences of the ETU both industrially and politically including its courage to fight off the Kelty super union reorganization of the 1980s and defending its right to its own identity and the protection of its electrical workers. As this union grew from 91 members, at its birth, in 1902 to in excess of 1600 in 2002 it has had to not only keep pace with an ever changing industrial environment but protect the interest of its members at the same time.

Sparkies at War is an account of ETU members who went to the Great War. ‘Your country needs you!’ was the call and they answered it. Telling their stories is the union’s way of honouring what they fought for and the sacrifices they made. ETU members fought in every major battle from Gallipoli to the Somme, from Hamel to the taking of the Hindenburg line and they were there when the Armistice was declared. Telling officers what they really thought seems to have been second nature, and being ‘Absent Without Leave’ for a few hours to do what soldiers do when they’re not on the battlefield, was common practice. They were the stuff of Anzac legend.

By the Banks of a Glass River tells of the life and times and the cultural development of the glass making people at the Pilkington glass making plant at Dandenong. It documents how they formed themselves into small communities along a river of glass. They thrived through the 1970-80s when the company monopolised glass-making in Australia. Survived through the torrid times of the 1990s when international competition savaged the security of a working life and decimated the workforce. Then faced the twenty-first century, yet another frontier to conquer. This is a social history of the life and times of the people and the society they formed along the production of glass that was the glass river. It’s funny, poignant and of historical importance. It is not a book about how glass is made but about the culture of those making that glass.

Heinemann Dogs In 2006 the workers of an electrical company manufacturing switchboards in a suburb of Melbourne entered into negotiations with their employer for a new enterprise agreement. But the employer only wanted to reduce their wages and conditions. These low paid production workers applied to the courts and were granted permission apply an overtime ban as a means to bring the employer to the table. In retaliation, the employer simply refused to pay them the wages for the week they had just worked  and Australian law said the company could do that. The dispute became one of national interest  as it brought communities together in what became a fight for a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.

In 1858 six miners hacked their way through the unmapped, unexplored bush of the Dandenong Ranges in search of gold. What they found wasn’t much but it caused a gold rush that opened up the area and caused a feud between the miners that went all the way to a government enquiry. In the records of that government enquiry were the voices of those miners and an introduction to who they were. They came out of that enquiry and onto the stage in what became the drama A Jewel Set in Gold that celebrated the anniversary of gold discovery in the district and led to the creation of the town of Emerald.

This book contains a play, Set in Gold that brings that story to life, lots of history snippets about life in those times and two essays on the historical research and how that was used to create the drama that is Set in Gold.

Contrasts is a combination of three one act plays, one drama, one comic drama and a farce, put together to create an evening to explore the contrasts of love, life and death.

1: The Rose of No-man’s Land set in a Great War trench and the front room of an Australian house. While a nurse and a digger fight for survival in a trench, their parents react to their letters, six months behind events. This is a poignant, heart breaking reflection of the effects of the Great War.

2 male & 2 female characters - 25 minutes

2: The Real Robbie Williams set in a city lane controlled by the underworld where there is nobody safer than the simple thinking Robbie. Then something happens and Robbie becomes the most vulnerable in it. Robbie was never meant to have the condition known as Asperger Syndrome but it is how his character developed on the page.

1 male & 3 female characters - 50 minutes

3: Bookends is set in the house of a classical composer Henry Tudor. He murders his wife so that he can move his mistress in but in this farce his wife comes back to haunt him and seek revenge complete with the axe still buried in her head.

1 male & 3 female characters - 30 minutes

Mind Games in a Prison Cell This is a book of five short plays that explore with chilling effect, the human ability to face adversity. Each play stands alone it is just that they all unfold within the walls of a prison cell.

1: Water Torture: - When a political prisoner and a murderer are put in the same cell with one pitcher of water it’s about their captors messing with their minds. There are no winners in mind games in a prison cell.

2 Male characters - 30 minutes

2: The Common Sailor and the Commodity: - In the convict ships of early Australia there is little room for humanity when the convicts are, in fact, nothing more than a commodity.

2 male & 2 female characters - 7 Minutes

3: Lucifer’s Last Dance: - Ten minutes before she goes out to be hanged the condemned prisoner faces the priest and it becomes a dance with the devil.

1 male & 1 female characters - 30 minutes

4: Scratchmarks: - when a teenage schoolgirl wanders into a jail cell and gets locked the scratchmarks on the inside of the door feed her imagination and her teenage angst turns into a a chilling examination of her inner self.

2 female characters - 25 minutes

5: The Female Factory: - It was a tough life in a convict women’s prison, known in those times as a female factory. But from life in a female factory comes an ability to face adversity providing you survive first. Not everybody does.

6 female characters - 45 minutes

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Dirty Little Toe-Rag This fun musical has five songs and while written for junior students has parts that can be played by youth and even adults. This story begins in the streets of Melbourne during the gold rush days. Boris, the paperboy, just wants to sell his papers and Boney, the street urchin just wants a friend. They don’t get on. Then Charlotte, a new chum, ‘well-to-do’ comes to town and gets lost. Boney offers her his coat and hat to keep warm, which causes her to be mistaken for an urchin and snatched from the street, for a cabin boy, by Bully Bowles, the villainous captain of a clipper ship. In an effort to rescue her, Boris and Boney must put aside their differences in an adventurous rescue.

Amid the chaos of sailors and urchins, workers and well-to-do’s, interacting on the streets of Melbourne and the deck of a clipper ship, this is a fun musical melodrama for all ages to enjoy.

Theme: Friendship comes from within Juniors/youth

2 x 45 minutes 13 main characters – 7 minor characters – any number of extras

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As the electrical trades union moved into the twenty-first century, it had to meet the challenge of change in the way it operated, industrially, politically and socially.

Industrial innovations, political machinations, safety concerns and social relationships have all been the business of this union as it moved into the new millennium, along with the demonising of it by those whose ideology is anti-union.

The union and its members have had their wins and their losses. They’ve been knocked to the canvas, they’ve got back up, wiped the blood from their faces and taken the up the fight for a fair go for workers time and again.

This history allows the reader to experience the challenge of this great union that is the twenty-first century as it happened.

This book is only available from the ETU Office at Present