Jock Blair was a senior shop steward in the Pilbara and, because of his study of computerization in the 1970’s was recruited by Laurie Carmichael to help build the union’s own computerization of its office administration and, later its word processing capacity.

Carmichael was an avid student of developments in technology and computerization. He applied what he learned to union policies and strategy for union members to gain as much control as possible in their workplaces. He also argued, successfully, for the union to be in the forefront of applying the technology for the benefit of the members in its own operations.

Jock Blair mentions the team that implemented the decisions made at the National Council of the union that Carmichael had proposed or argued for. 

Pictured: former Labor resources and energy minister Martin Ferguson, Laurie Carmichael, centre, and former ACTU secretary Bill Kelty.

This is a comprehensive and heartfelt memoir of Laurie Carmichael driven by about 25 years of close quarters union leadership and friendship.

Carmichael, other AMWSU and union representatives arrested for union activity in the Pilbara, 1979

Here, Laurie Carmichael reports to the National Council of the AMWSU June 13^th, 1979, on the circumstances leading to his arrest, with Jack Marks and Don Bartlem and then others,  by the Western Australian police for participating in union activity associated with an industrial dispute in the Pilbara.

The National Council held a lengthy discussion having received comprehensive reports from other leading officials and covering the WA State Council decision of the day before.

Carmichael’s account of the arrests was written into the Minutes of the National Council. The Minutes also show details of the circumstances and the responses of the WA Trades and Labour Council, the ACTU, and other unions that led to industrial actions across the country and negotiations with the Fraser and WA Court governments for a compromise.

These show that Carmichael, Marks and Education Officer, … McTiernan were visiting the Pilbara to report on the union’s education programme, and to conduct a seminar (part of a series across the country that started in April) on “Arbitration – Awards and Agreements”.

The arrests were connected to a major industrial dispute involving Hamersley Iron (now part of Rio Tinto) in the Pilbara.

Around 1,000 workers at Hamersley Iron’s (later Rio Tinto) Pilbara mines (including Tom Price and Paraburdoo) were on strike over wages, improved safety standards, and conditions. The unions involved included the Australian Workers' Union (AWU) and the Amalgamated Metal Workers' and Shipwrights Union (AMWSU).

The Western Australian Liberal government (led by Premier Charles Court) actively encouraged Hamersley Iron’s hardline stance, refusing to negotiate and threatening legal action.

The company sought injunctions against the strike, to declare it illegal.

The government extended its support for Hamersley Iron by engineering the arrests, using the Trade Unions Act to charge them with "inciting an illegal strike."

In these pictures (courtesy of Jock Blair) striking workers are gathering in front of the Roebourne Court House for Carmichael, Marks, and others arrested to answer the charges against them. Carmichael is standing third from the right in the first photo.

The story of the arrests is also recounted in the biography of Jack Marks, Marksy by Jolly Read.

There was an extraordinary union and public reaction against the arrests that led to public protest demonstrations and strikes.

At the Perth mass meeting of workers from many unions BLF shop steward, kevin Reynolds, said:

"If they jail Laurie and Jack today, they’ll come for the rest of us tomorrow. We’re not asking for solidarity—we’re demanding it!"
(Speech at Forrest Place rally, June 12, 1979; recorded in WA Trades Hall minutes)

Bob Hawke, ACTU President at the time, said:

"On June 20, we stop the nation. Not for ourselves, but for every worker who’s ever been bullied by a boss or arrested for standing up. This is our line in the sand."

The ACTU called a 24-hour national strike on June 20, 1979, with 1+ million workers participating—Australia’s largest industrial action in years. Key industries (transport, manufacturing, docks) shut down to protest the WA government’s anti-democratic actions. TWU truck drivers refused deliveries to Hamersley sites.

In Melbourne (June 18) 10,000 workers gathered at the Melbourne Town Hall, with Carmichael and Bob Hawke (ACTU President) speaking.

In Sydney the next day 8,000 workers at the Sydney Trades Hall voted to extend strikes if arrests continued.

Young AMWSU organiser, Doug Cameron, said:

"They want us to beg for crumbs. We’re not begging—we’re taking. And if they try to stop us, we’ll take more."
(Tribune, June 20, 1979)

These actions forced negotiations, with PM Malcolm Fraser pressuring WA Premier Charles Court to de-escalate.

Carmichael and Marks were released without severe penalties, but the event hardened union opposition to WA’s industrial laws.

The Court government was publicly condemned for using authoritarian tactics to suppress workers rights on behalf of the powerful mining corporations.

Veteran unionists involved in the dispute, like Jock Blair Kevin Reynolds, are still alive having never retired from the struggle.

Laurie Carmichael delivers this address towards the closing stages of the shorter hours campaign and national wage negotiations for 1982, in the context of an economic recession supervised by the Fraser government, and when there was emerging a public discussion about a possible prices and incomes agreement.

The recording is in 2 parts, including his preliminary speech and his responses to questions from journalists in the audience.

Laurie Carmichael address at the National Press Club on 10 June 1982 [sound recording].

In this address we listen to Carmichael’s intellectual heft, sharp wit, combativity, and capacity to represent workers’ views on the national stage.

Note: the link requires an additional click on “I accept” to listen to the recording.

The content covers a range of issues that indicate the priorities of the union at the time as required by mass meetings and other communications with members: there is the shorter working week, wages settlement emerging, the social wage – a new concept for journalists and many others, industry development, the power of capital and how it was being exercised in the dynamics of the system, investment decision-making as workers and union business, tripartitism, and trade union rights for workers in east Asia.

In these photos we see Laurie Carmichael in action as a union trainer, while Assistant National Secretary of the AMWSU, at the Clyde Cameron College in 1978.

The Clyde Cameron College was the national, residential “training centre” for the Trade Union Training Authority (TUTA).

This is probably one of the first courses conducted at the CCC, which was a residential college with advanced facilities (including a seriously good library) in a modern building of its time. Carmichael was one of its great champions.

The participants in this course come from several unions including from the AMWSU, Carmichael’s own union. Jim Baird (a national organiser at the time) and Ted Wiltshire, from the union’s national research team, are there. Wiltshire was a prominent figure in the research and education work for Australia Uprooted, Australia Ripped Off, and the similar union pamphlets that followed in the next 12 years or so. He also played a prominent role in the Australia Reconstructed project in 1987.

It is likely that the material in these pamphlets, the rationale for them and the associated industrial strategy for which they were produced, was primary content in this course.

We acknowledge and thank Tribune – SEARCH Foundation for making these photos publicly available through TROVE.

Laurie Carmichael and Dick Scott raise the questions to be discussed among members about the forthcoming 1974 wages and conditions campaign, using the pages of the AMWU’s monthly journal.

This is the end of the second full year of the Whitlam Labor government and, of course, after the defeat of the penal powers in 1969. The new Labor government soon inherited a global recession through no fault of their own.

The unions had to work out how to make wage and other gains in the context of a recession and a Labor government more on the defensive because of that.

Note the use of questions to build membership involvement from below.

Laurie Carmichael studied technological change, especially the application of microchips and automation to production technologies and systems. This report was endorsed and then published by the AMWSU in pamphlet form to all members, used in its own union education program, and shared with the Trade Union Training Authority.

Carmichael wanted to work out the implications of automation for vocational learning at all levels, including at the trade level and above, and, the demands unions might put forward for changes to awards and pay levels.

Report to the AMWSU 1980 National Conference, by Laurie Carmichael

Authorised by the 1980 National Conference to be distributed to all members.

Extra commentary and links

The 1980 National Conference decision to endorse the report and reproduce it in this pamphlet form made sure that AMWSU members were learning more than the general community about the impact of the computer revolution on their work and other aspects of their daily lives, and on society as a whole.

The contents reflect Laurie Carmichael’s wide reading on the subject and deep thinking about all its implications. Above all, he wanted the union to be the vehicle through which metal workers could maintain and strengthen control over the labour process and build that control into their industrial awards.

Carmichael delivered the report orally to the National Conference of union delegates. Most to whom he was speaking were tradespeople, both shop stewards and full time officials of the union, who had secondary school at around their fifteenth birthdays. His plain language does not dumb down the content, thus respecting the members’ capacity to deal with the complex issues at stake.

His personal study enabled him to propose a historical summary of the development of technology through 4 principal stages, up to the “modern technological revolution” “bursting forth” in the 1970’s. He explains how that rapid development overlapped and influenced other changes in capitalists society, including the rise of “finance capital”: “The international monetary fund’s acts as an instrument to dominate by indebtedness enforcing wage controls, reduce social welfare, and create unemployment.” Despite the magnitude of forces and power arraigned against workers he rejects despair and defeatism, instead laying out the necessary ingredients for union activity:

“… to begin producing a renewed movement in all of its dimensions ….

“A vital part of this was the need tr an adequate core analysis of the new situation and its various features. The elaboration of strategies to meet it and organisation of forces to get it moving.

“There are now signs that renewal is beginning to occur. It will do so and develop to the extent that there is the deepest possible understanding of the situation.

“But there is need for concrete study. For metal workers this obviously means a concrete study of the metal industry.”

And from there he sketches the key ingredients for union activity, including:

“We cannot simply stand aside ‘waiting for something to turn up’. We must directly intervene and fight for egalitarian values and action to serve these values.

“A program is required and a strategy to achieve it. It is not enough to have a policy, although a policy is essential.

“… strategy essentially requires much greater organisation of workers exercising their own self-action, on all matters tat affect their lives …. Thus we contribute to the growth of democracy in the very task of giving effect to the strategy.

“A shorter work week, a new technical training policy, intervention on all managerial prerogatives, expanded social welfare, a worthwhile community education and creative recreation movement and increased trade union rights are vital components of such a program.

“… extension of democratic intervention into the national political economy must go to the supply side (ownership and control) …. A broader 7-point program in the course of the 35 hours campaign …..”

The pamphlet was read and discussed in shop stewards training courses at the AMWSU and in the Trade Union Training Authority and contributed to the self-confidence and determination among workers to win shorter working hours within the next 3 years.

Carmichael studied the development of technology right through to his retirement, especially in the proposals associated with award restructuring and new vocational education.

A significant cohort of union leaders, shop stewards, organisers, educators, industrial officers committed to developing aspects of the policy and strategy at industry and workplace level in several industries during the 80’s and on to the present day.

The proposals for workers democracy in driving the green transition from fossil fuel production systems to renewables is the modern version of these ideas.

Essential Reading

Laurie Carmichael was a voracious reader, and he encouraged other officials, organisers, and delegates to lift their reading to improve their contribution.

Often, he provided recommended reading in casual conversations and in more formal meetings and training courses.

This example is from Doug Cameron, a power industry delegate who later became a renowned National Secretary of the Union, that shows what Carmichael recommended to him after he was elected to an official role in the AMWSU.

Cameron says Carmichael gave him this list during their first discussion after he had been elected around 1983 by the members to his first full-time organiser's role.

Global Reach, click here

In the late 1970’s the AMWSU sponsored a national speaking tour for Richard Barnet, one of the authors of this important book.

Australia and World Capitalism, click here

Carmichael and the AMWSU were active supporters of Ted Wheelwright, an activist political economist who founded the first Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney. Graduates from the Department could take seriously the possibility of working in the Research Department at the AMWSU.

Penal Colony to Penal Powers, click here and click here

Jack Hutson, the author of this book, produced three outstanding books for AMWU members and this is one of them. The others were “Six Wage Concepts”, in effect a history of wage setting in Australia up to the early 80’s, and “Inflation, the Silent Robber”, a primer written for union members on economics in theory and in practice during the high inflation period.

These books were first published in serial form direct to AMWSU members in the pages of the union’s monthly journal.

Political Economy of Capitalism, Paul Sweezy

Probably, the book is this one: The Theory of Capitalist Development. Click here.

Strategy for Socialism, Stuart Holland. Click here.

Tom Mann was one of the greatest figures of the global union movement and socialist left at the end of the nineteenth century and into the first part of the 20^th century.

In 1976, Laurie Carmichael, (himself becoming, unconsciously, one of Australia’s finest labour and socialist movement leaders), introduces Tom Mann to the members of the metal workers union.

Carmichael had been elected as the “Assistant Commonwealth Secretary” after the amalgamation process that created the Australian Metal Workers Union from a set of metal industry unions. 

“The Greatness of Metalworker – Tom Mann”, by Laurie Carmichael, Assistant AMWU Commonwealth Secretary

Read the item here.

https://lauriecarmichaelinstitute.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/carmichael-on-tom-mann.pdf

The image shows Tom Mann’s renowned sketch of how the unions’ picket lines should be laid out against the employers and scabs in the Broken Hill dispute of 1908-9.

We show it here with thanks to Neale Towart, Librarian and Heritage Officer, Unions NSW. 

Extra commentary and links

The article coincides with the decision of the National Council to name the new theatre on the ground floor of the new national headquarters of the union in Chalmers St, Surry Hills, as the Tom Mann Theatre. He is explaining some of their heritage to the members of the newly amalgamated union.

The article says much about Laurie Carmichael himself. It required detailed research and reading, and of course serious thinking about the then modern legacy that Mann had left. Mann’s emphasis on the union as a centre of the recreational and cultural development of its members resonated deeply.

Carmichael developed that in several ways, including the AMWU sponsorship of a tour of Australia by the famed and much-loved folk movement leaders, Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger, and the distribution of the union’s audio tape of one of their performances.

Carmichael alerts the members to Mann’s activities as a socialist unionist and its synergy with political intervention into both the Labor Party and socialism to the left of the Labor Party.

Some years after this article was published, new research was published on Mann’s life, that was used in the union’s education program for shop stewards/delegates and organizers. There is an updated version of this original Carmichael article that takes account of this research, available on request.

• Don Sutherland

Links

Excerpt from Tom Mann’s Memoirs that describes his experience of the Broken Hill Dispute 1908-9

https://www.marxists.org/archive/mann-tom/1923/memoir/chXVI.htm 

“Tom Mann’s Memoirs”, edited by Ken Coates, Spokesman Books

https://spokesmanbooks.org/product/span-stylefont-size-14pxtom-manns-memoirsspan/

“Tom Mann: Social and Economic Writings”, edited with an Introduction by John Laurent, Spokesman Books

https://spokesmanbooks.org/product/span-stylefont-size-14pxtom-mannspan-1610702438/

In this short memoir Tony Evans reflects on Laurie Carmichael and Jim Baird. Baird and Carmichael worked closely and with other officials of the union to develop the research and bargaining strategy that would be presented to members. The research usually included information collected from shop steward meetings and surveys.

CLICK HERE

Tony Evans is a veteran union activist, now retired, and a South Australian. Tony was (is) a multi-union and multi-industry union "mindful militant". Laurie Carmichael pushed him into union roles that involved "active research". He wanted to and was required to work with union delegates and members to produce information that could be used in consultations and confrontations with governments and employers about jobs in the manufacturing industry.