EYEBROWS AND EQUAL PAY

By Max Ogden

I first met Rupe about three years before in the late fifties when he was president of the Northcote branch of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, (AEU). I was thinking of this as I made my way to CIG Equipment which surrounded a pub like a prisoner, which is appropriate as the Remand Centre now occupies the site, on the corner of Latrobe and Spencer Sts. He was the AEU shop steward at the plant.

Rupe was a formidable union man in the old labour tradition. Fiercely loyal, strong personality, good values, a hater of bosses and Groupers, not a lot of strategy and tactics, incorruptible, and his members loved him. Groupers were so-called because as Catholic, right wing groups in the Australian Labor Party and unions, in the forties and fifties, they had attacked Communist and Left influence in the unions and ALP, in a McCarthyist smear.

Finally this led to a showdown in 1955 where the groupers were expelled from the ALP. They formed the Democratic Labor Party, which by giving it’s preferences to the conservatives, prevented the Labor Party from winning federal and state government for many years. Rupe probably hated nobody more than traitors who divided and split the labour movement, so the Groupers copped his opprobrium for the rest of his life.

At the meetings of the branch I had come to notice his eyebrows. They would move up and down so far and so fast that I was entranced. You didn’t have to hear him speak. By watching his eyebrows you got the message loud and clear.

It was December ’61. I had been out of work for a couple of months during the recession, and Rupe said “come down to CIG Equipment I’ll get you a job and we need some more union blokes”. So here I was.

I wandered through the factory. There were no security guards in those days, and asked for Rupe. Everybody knew Rupe. He ran the place as tight as a drum. Everything that moved was in the AEU. Not only the usual fitters, turners, toolmakers, but clerks, truck drivers, storemen, cleaners, canteen staff, and even the boss Dick May.

We wandered into Dick’s office and he said “What is it now Rupe?”, “Dick, I’ve got this mate of mine looking for a job, and we need another turner”. “Rupe, how many times have I told you we don’t have much work and head office has ordered me not to employ any new people as we have had to put off quite a few”

Rupe starts soft talking in a way that would be hard for anybody to resist, but resist Dick did. It was getting a bit embarrassing so I said “Rupe forget it. There’re other jobs going”.

Rupe accompanied me to the factory door, raised his eyebrows suggesting some conspiracy was afoot, and said “Wait here for a few minutes”. Ten minutes later he’s back, and says “Be here at seven thirty tomorrow morning”. To this day I don’t know what he said or did, but I am sure those eyebrows had something to do with it.

A couple of weeks later we closed for the Xmas break and when we resumed in January we moved into a brand, spanking new factory in Preston, which brought together two or three other CIG factories, about eight or nine hundred workers under the one roof. CIG Equipment was a subsidiary of British Oxygen, and produced all kinds of gas welding, cutting, and spray painting equipment for industry and the retail market, medical equipment such as humidicribs, and control systems for medical gases of many kinds.

These were very high quality and precision products, required to meet rigorous safety standards, and the company was renowned worldwide for it’s ability to drill incredibly small and long holes. The workforce, even those officially classified as second and third class machinists were highly skilled in these procedures, and took considerable pride in what they regarded as high quality and worthwhile products.

On the first day back after the holidays, Rupe was called up to meet the new, in fact the first ever CIG industrial relations officer, to be told that Dick May was “No longer with us and things are going to change around here”. Rupe came to see me immediately, very dark, with his eyebrows half way to his hair line, saying “We could be in for a fight, we have a whole new management and I am sure most of them are Groupers”.

Looking back I sometimes wonder that if McDonalds had of been around then and saw Rupe angry, they would have offered him a fortune to use his eyebrows as the symbol for the arches. Who knows, we may have been eating a Big Eyebrow or something similar.

What made him even more angry was that the AEU no longer had the place to themselves. With the merging of the various plants the other unions representing their traditional classifications were now present. Rupe argued strongly and rightly that the workers would be much better off united in the one union. What he really meant was all the other unions were as weak as piss, and were probably Groupers anyway. Finally, as so often happens, logic is ignored and power prevails. With agreement everybody sorted themselves into their right union. Which still left the AEU by far the largest.

By this time I had learned more about how to work with Rupe. I suggested that, with six unions now on site, and such a large number of workers, we really should establish an inter-union shop committee and have more shop stewards. The response as expected was, “What, give those other unions equal status with us? They’re probably Groupers anyway”.

After a few days of this discussion Rupe sidled up to my lathe one day and said, “You know I’ve been thinking, it might be helpful if we organised an inter-union shop committee”. I said “Great idea Rupe. We’ll call the other unions together”. He proposed that I and a few others be nominated for election as shop stewards at the next mass meeting, and to endorse the new inter-union shop committee. This all went smoothly and the other unions were only too happy to be part of a committee and elected Rupe chair and convenor of stewards. It was never too difficult to be elected a shop steward, the first person to offer usually got the job, but if you stuffed up that is a different matter.

Things were certainly changing. Rupe arranged through the industrial relations officer to meet the new management and to introduce his new union team. This now had to be done officially through the right channels, which of course meant they could delay and frustrate. No longer could Rupe just wander into Dick’s office and sort things out.

The new manager, Alan Parker, was a person you immediately disliked before he even opened his mouth. Unsmiling, rimless glasses, very focussed, with steely eyes, hair parted in the middle and plastered down, smart suit. He proceeded to lay the law down about how everything will be done by the rules. Shop stewards could no longer wander around as they felt like it. Written permission was needed for every move. Everything had to go through the industrial relations officer. Any meetings had to be notified beforehand and permission would not automatically be granted. “No longer was the union going to run the place”. Funny I hadn’t noticed that it did.

Rupe’s eyebrows were further up his forehead than I had yet seen. As was his wont, Rupe loved going for the man. He launched into a tirade about how Parker was not a patch on Dick May, and other managers he had worked with, that there was no way he or any of the other union stewards in the room will be abiding by any rules that he set, and if his intent was to run the union out of the place, he had picked a fight he won’t win. “Mark my words Parker,” he said, “we will still be here long after you’re gone and forgotten”. A battle of wills was joined.

Parker was clearly upset, as I doubt he had ever been spoken to like that by an employee before. He demanded a commitment to follow the rules, and an apology from Rupe neither of which were forthcoming. He picked up his papers and stormed out. So began the new era at CIG Equipment. We walked out of the meeting with Rupe all smiles saying “I got under that bastard’s skin, and he knows where we stand”.

A few days later just to make sure there was no confusion in Parker’s mind, Rupe was talking to me at my lathe on the way back from a tea break when Parker walked past, head down, papers in hand. He stopped and addressed us, “Why aren’t you two working?” Rupe said “We were attending to important business which was probably more than could be said for what you are doing, and by the way don’t forget what I said the other day” and proceeded to poke him in the shoulder as he made the point about the union being there long after he was gone. Parker stormed off, and I suspect he needed treatment on that shoulder, because Rupe must have been nearly through to his shoulder blade by the time he finished.

As luck would have it, Dick May took over a ham and beef shop only about two kilometres from the plant. Having been a very long time employee and highly respected manager, he still had close friends and contacts in the place. It must have been the first time ever that a ham and beef shop resembled a hairdressers. We would gather ever week or so in his shop for a yarn as one does when waiting for a haircut, instead we waited for our ham to be cut, and nearly always Dick had the inside gen on what management was planning.

After these discussions, the next time we met management, Rupe just loved to let drop that he understood management were going to put off a couple of employees in a department, or were planning to tighten discipline about clocking on, or were trying to enforce the overtime provisions in the award, etc.. The managers would always be embarrassed by these revelations, but eventually would have to admit they were true, and I don’t think they ever tumbled to the source of our information.

Rupe was also a good musician and played saxophone in the big bands around Melbourne for many years. As a result like many musos of that period, he was a snappy dresser. Even at work where he was a highly skilled and highly regarded toolmaker, he looked the part and wore a grey dust coat, which was a misnomer because many of us believed it never had a speck of dust on it. We used to joke about how cheap it must be for the company to only have to clean his coat once a year.

As one would expect he was as fierce a member of the Musicians Union as the AEU. He used to make sure everybody he sat down to play with was in the union, and if there was someone new and he knew their name before getting to the gig, he would check with the union as to whether or not they were members. There was no escaping him. As he was getting on a bit he decided to quit playing and concentrate on organising musos, so he would be out many nights terrorising dance halls and bandstands, and of course fighting the Groupers who, he said, had control of the union.

We often suspected that there was more to this activity than met the eye. He had an eye for the opposite sex, was always well dressed, and when we asked the next day how he had gone organising the previous night, sometimes his eyebrows went quite high, indicating that they didn’t just rise when he was angry.

Things settled down for a few months, with the odd skirmish and brief stoppages over our agreement, discipline etc., but nothing that required Rupe to raise his eyebrows too high.

On one occasion some bad bushfires started to get close to places like Warrandyte, and outer north east where quite a number of the CIG employees lived. The shop committee decided to request a couple of trucks from the company with as much water as they could carry, and get volunteers from the factory to help fight the fires. The management to our amazement flatly refused to co-operate.

Rupe’s eyebrows were touching his hairline. So we said either they co-operate or the whole workforce will go and fight the fires. Amazingly, the trucks were ready in double quick time with plenty of volunteers. The following week the company was telling anybody who would listen, how they had helped their employees fight the fires.

Rupe seemed to have a penchant for funerals. He must have attended about one a week. He would sidle up to me and say that so and so an ex-employee, or the father-in-law of a shop committee member, or someone remotely connected to the plant had died, and “Didn’t I think the shop committee should be represented, and I would be prepared to go”. He must have enjoyed the food and drink or something, because many times he did not know the person, but the union was always present.

Finally the crunch that a few skirmishes had been leading to arrived. After one of our yarns around slicing the ham, when next we met management, Rupe happened to ask with eyebrows rather arched, “Is it correct that you are planning next week to employ women on the shop floor to take the jobs of many men?” The looks on the faces of management had to be seen to be believed. They were stunned, their secret was out.

After much stammering and stuttering they admitted they were thinking about it, but it would not happen for a while. Anyway, they were always going to talk to the union first. Under threat of industrial action and Rupe’s stare below his arched eyebrows, which by this time were starting to look like a church steeple, they agreed nothing would happen for the next couple of weeks and there would be discussions, but it would happen.

The story was out and the place was abuzz. Rupe said to me, “Those bastards, they want the women in so they will join the Federated Ironworkers Association, and we are not going to allow those Groupers in here.” Any talk of Groupers took him right off the scale, and his face must have ached under the strain of the eyebrow arch.

I said, “Rupe the issue is not about which union they are in, it is about the women receiving equal pay”. He stormed off saying, “Mark my words it is about getting the Groupers in”. The next day he had calmed down and sidled up to my lathe and said, “You know I think those bastards want to pay the women less than the men”, I said “You’re right Rupe and we need a strategy”.

That day the shop committee decided there was only one simple issue: women are welcome on the shop floor provided they receive the same pay for the same classification as the men, and men would not therefore be displaced because of lower female wages.

The negotiations started for equal pay. Almost immediately due to management intransigence, we were into industrial action. With a nice sunny Friday, and most people sick of work for the week, the members were only too pleased to knock off. Most adjourned to the Olympic Hotel for the afternoon. Over the coming weeks this was to become something of a ritual, and the pub must have lost heavily when the dispute finally ended.

During this period the so called negotiations got quite heated. On one occasion Rupe was so incensed that he accused Parker of being a fascist, to which Parker responded by demanding an apology, and the reply from Rupe, “You heard what I said as did everybody else around the table and there will be no apology”. All hell was breaking lose, so I gently nudged Rupe’s ankle under the table to try and get him to calm down and concentrate on the issue. Instead it had the opposite effect, he turned his burning eyebrows on me and asked loudly “Why are you kicking me in the ankle”, and said something about “I can’t even trust my mates now”, I suspect at that moment he thought I was a sell out Grouper as well.

Very quickly AEU secretary Laurie Carmichael became involved as like the rest of us, he could see that this was likely to be a big dispute, and that we could not win without the support of the whole union movement. This required very careful and sensitive negotiations as the Trades Hall Council was not renowned as a hive of radical thought. Most of the officers probably could not even spell the word strike, let alone have experienced one.

For a while it was almost a ritual. The negotiations were not getting far, management would threaten that the women would start on such and such a date, we said the moment they walked in we walked out, so nothing much happened. To make the point however most Fridays just happened to have an issue requiring a lunchtime mass meeting, and lo and behold someone moved we go home for the afternoon and the Olympic Hotel staff would be all smiles.

It got to the stage where the members would look forward to their half day off on Fridays, especially if the weather was good, and they had been working a lot of overtime. Some would come prepared to play golf, go fishing, head off for the weekend, or whatever took their fancy.

Rupe loved it as Parker would angrily ring him during the Friday morning to find out what might be happening that day, and Rupe would say, “I don’t know because it is up to the members to decide, as the union is a democracy, something that you, would not understand”. Parker would slam the phone down while Rupe was grinning from ear to ear, which made quite a sight when combined with his arched eyebrows.

As the phoney war continued, we had a report back mass meeting on the state of negotiations, as usual being a pleasant Friday. Many members turned up with their various recreational pursuits in mind, golf, fishing, meeting mates in the pub etc. as they planned their half day stoppage. However after a meeting of the inter-union shop committee, it had been agreed that tactically it would be unwise to walk off that day. Negotiations with the Trades Hall Council were at a very delicate stage and to stop work, even just for the afternoon without their authority, would provide an excuse for those who were looking for the THC not to have to support us.

Rupe and I were given the unenviable task of convincing the mass meeting that they return to the job for the afternoon, as otherwise it would undermine our support when the real battle began. They reluctantly agreed and resumed work, but I suspect only out of loyalty to the union, not out of conviction.

This turned out to be one of the worst afternoons Rupe, the shop committee, and I probably ever had to endure. Everywhere we went in the factory there were jibes about “stuffing up their plans for the afternoon”, we were “weak as piss”, “the boss had called our bluff”, etc.. Ironically the boss got little out of the situation as not much work got done anyway, as the members argued about whether we had done the right thing. Nothing like staying on the job, being paid and little gets done. The word on the Monday from our mate Dick May was that the company thought the union was weakening and were cock-a-hoop that we might now talk reason. Little did they know.

Dick had also told us that he thought they were recruiting from the British migrant hostel which was virtually next door to the plant. We went in to check. Sure enough, many of the women had been interviewed and were told to be ready to start soon. After we explained to these women what was happening they said they supported us and would not turn up.

Well finally it arrived, the phoney war was over, the real thing started. We had exhausted every argument and the company chirpily said the women would be starting on the shopfloor the next Monday. The look on the faces of management when we told them that no women would be turning up and in fact they were supporting us. There are times when you kick yourself for not having a camera handy and this was one of them. They screamed something about the lies we must have been filling the heads of the women with, and anyhow, how did we know they had recruited from the hostel, and what right did we have to interfere in the company’s business. Needless to say that session broke up in chaos.

We went to the mass meeting with our final report which was basically, we have got nowhere and the company has decided the women will start the next Monday, at 75% the rate of the men, which will probably lead to displacing some male employees. It was almost a relief, all the dancing around, playing games, and bullshit was over. We could now get down to the real business. The decision to strike was unanimous. There was even a cheer that the main game was joined. Rupe was overjoyed at the show of solidarity and support for the union and his eyebrows worked overtime. He encouraged everybody who wished, to be part of the strike committee, and to assemble at the plant gates early the next morning to begin the picket line.

As most headed for the pub, home, or wherever, as protocol requires we headed back to tell management officially that their employees were now out indefinitely. They clearly had not been convinced when we kept telling them in the lead up, that a strike was likely, and were in some shock.

This was the first time the employees of CIG Equipment had ever gone on strike, except for the various half day stoppages during the lead up. The traditional paternalist management, many longterm and committed employees, reasonable wages and conditions, and people treated comparatively well, had all contributed to a trouble free past.

In their state of shock management launched an attack on me saying that they had never had any trouble until I was employed, and anyway “what would you expect from a member of the Communist Party”. They obviously thought this might create divisions. The impact was precisely the reverse. Laurie Carmichael picked up his papers and he and Rupe said that the union would not stand for it’s shop stewards being attacked, that this was an implied attack on the members, and the Victorian Trades Hall would hear about this as they were fully supporting this strike.

The committee stormed out, and said we would not be back until there was an apology. Management were stunned at the response. It seemed to finally dawn on them that with VTHC support for the dispute, they were pulling on a much more formidable force than they had ever expected. Rupe was over the moon to be able to demonstrate the union’s strength so directly to management. As we got to the front gate we heard a shout and it was the industrial relations officer asking us to wait. He came up and sheepishly said, “It was an over reaction by management, and would we come back?” We thought it wise not to continue, and said we would contact them the next day.

There were still small groups standing around the deserted plant discussing the situation. Many loyal employees were still confused by the deterioration in relationships with management, their refusal to negotiate, or see what they regarded as the very reasonable demand for everyone to get the same wage for the same work.

It is interesting that most people will take such drastic action as striking, marching , demonstrating or whatever, not for radical demands, but because they believe that what they are asking for is reasonable. This was a group of traditional blue collar workers, who never had taken strike action before. In no way could they be described as radical. Yet their bounds of reasonableness had been breeched and this made them very determined.

There is something eerie about a large workplace which is normally a hive of activity, completely deserted and idle. All the fine machinery, some of it the best technology available, sitting lonely, almost crying out for the attention and careful handling by the highly skilled workforce. If you listened hard enough you could almost hear the machines talking to each other, a bit like children, perplexed and wondering what they had done to deserve being left on their own. It is the absence of people when they are often most appreciated. This is never clearer than in a workplace. People are important no matter the technology. We just hoped that CIG Equipment management would begin to appreciate their employees in their absence.

The next day we were overwhelmed with people turning up at the picket line. We quickly had a roster arranged to cover the gate twenty four hours a day. In fact we were not expecting too much trouble because apart from the clerical staff, and even some of them had joined us, there was not a soul in the place. It was far too big a factory for management to handle on their own. Very few trucks turned up because as the company employed it’s own trucks and drivers and they were part of the strike, practically nothing moved. Also the Trades Hall Council support meant a letter had gone to all affiliated unions asking them to inform their members not to go near CIG Equipment.

Situations such as a strike unleash unexpected initiative and commitment of those involved. By the weekend the inevitable barbeque had materialised. It looked familiar and almost certainly had been made clandestinely as a “foreigner” sometime in the plant, with the latest CIG gas bottles and valve controls. I doubt that CIG Gases got paid for the gas used over the nearly three weeks.

Often people who have never spoken at a meeting, nor offered an opinion, suddenly emerge with all sorts of skills and connections. Someone’s fifth cousin ran a fruit and vegetable shop and donated food. Someone else’s brother was a butcher and miraculously meat appeared. The Olympic Hotel donated some beer, (a fraction of what they made out of CIG employees), and so it went. In the finish we had more food and drink than we knew what to do with.

As Trades Hall was supporting the strike they provided a room for the strike committee. About 50 people turned up to plan activities. These included addressing lunchtime meetings of factories, women’s groups, unions, etc., seeking support and finance, arranging collection sheets for unions to send out to members, hearing regular reports on the negotiations, issuing press releases, collecting food and drink, making sure the members were always up to date on developments, and a myriad of other things that make for a frenetic pace.

Rupe was in his element as he surveyed the room. He regarded them very much as his flock who needed his guidance and protection. With his expressive eyebrows, well groomed, his burning commitment and belief in a better world, he had the bearing of a man of the cloth. I could often picture him in the pulpit.

As is usual in these situations the parties were quickly in the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission in front of the Commissioner who in no time was chairing a conciliation conference. One task was to make sure that each time there was a conference we had the gallery packed to witness the negotiations. This was unusual in those days and caused some disquiet to the Commissioner, the Trades Hall Council officer, and particularly the company who preferred to have such meetings behind closed doors. Rupe was involved in most of the negotiations, while the other stewards and I concentrated on the organisational side of things.

We had begun to address lunchtime meetings to get support and raise funds. One meeting in particular was a challenge. There were still a couple of CIG plants which were not involved. One of these was EMF which manufactured electric arc welding equipment, battery charges etc.. The shop steward was a guy called Ern Pritchard who was chairman of the notorious Clifton Hill branch of the AEU which was dominated by Groupers whose main role was attacking the union’s leadership no matter what they did. He was about sixty, a tall, spare man, with a scowl that seemed to permanently crease his face. He never smiled and always seemed intent on attacking anyone who disagreed with him. He reserved his most bitter vitriol for communists and the left.

As luck would have it my father worked in this plant and had requested that as shop steward Pritchard should convene a lunchtime meeting to hear a report from the strike committee. He refused. We organised the meeting ourselves with the help of my father and a handful of other supporters in the factory. About sixty people assembled on the footpath outside the plant in Rathdowne St. North Carlton.

From the start it was a very difficult meeting. To be conciliatory we asked Pritchard if he as shop steward would like to chair the meeting. He refused. We soon realised why as once we started he began disrupting by shouting, interrupting me as the main speaker, yelling that CIG was a great company who treated their employees well, and we were traitors, anyway women should not get equal pay, to the stage where even his own members asked him to lay off as they wanted to hear the story.

Finally it came time for a vote and we were not too optimistic. My old man moved a vote of support and there was silence, no seconder. Then in what was a familiar Liverpool/Irish voice, from the back of the meeting came, “I second it”. I looked hard and sure enough it was my colleague Jim O’Neill, a boilermaker, who was later to become a very fine and well know Victorian union official. I thought, “What is Jim doing here?”

Pritchard rounded on him, angry that there had been a seconder and demanded to know where he worked. Jim, with a very vague nod of his head said, “Down there, I just started today”. Pritchard was not a happy chappie, but he was more intent to see that there was no vote of support.

He proceeded in an outburst of hatred and bile against the union’s left wing leadership, to attack the strike and threaten anyone who voted in support. They were betraying the company and would not be in good standing. In the event only a handful voted to support us.

As for Jim O’Neill, when the meeting was over I asked how he came to be there. He had been sent to EMF by his employer for a few days training in some new welding technique. He was damned if he was going to let “That bastard Pritchard get away without even a seconder for the motion”. The company later boasted that they had received a letter from Pritchard saying that the meeting was fully behind management. Which was not what the meeting decided at all. When we later told his members about the letter, many were not very happy about it.

Rupe was livid when he heard how we had been treated. His eyebrows were indistinguishable from his hairline, because both parted in the middle, but he had his revenge. About half way through the second week of the strike with negotiations deadlocked, the Victorian Trades Hall Council decided to order the rest of CIG workers out the gate. This meant in particular CIG Gases who had been wanting to hit the grass from day one, and EMF. Gases were critical because this really put the heat on industry, hospitals, etc..

Rupe and Laurie Carmichael addressed another meeting of about seventy EMF employees to explain the VTHC’s decision. This time they voted substantially to support the strike in opposition to Pritchard. Rupe was elated as he watched the employees leaving the plant, and Pritchard being forced to follow.

We adjourned to the Great Northern Hotel where Rupe proceeded to discuss his favourite topic to anyone who would listen, “What a bunch of bastards the Groupers are”.

Strikes bring out many unrecognised talents, values, and rarely spoken views about work, politics, and society, at least in the first couple of weeks before the economic loss starts to bite. It is an exciting, and unfortunately too rare experience, to witness people working so selflessly and co-operatively together, and prepared to sacrifice for each other. This includes people who may not be friends on the job, and even those who may not be convinced about the efficacy of a strike.

As we began to collect funds and recognised that only one union paid strike pay, it was unanimously decided that the fairest way was to pool all funds including the union strike pay. Then it was agreed that those who had spouses working would not take any money for the first two weeks, but to be reviewed. This meant that those with no income and a family to upkeep got the most, singles got some, and everybody else simply took a share of the food and other goodies that were being collected.

However there was a committee to which people could go if they had special needs such as their mortgage payments or other urgent bills which could not wait until after the strike. Very few availed themselves of this. For those who did need help, it was nearly always possible to have their debts postponed for the moment.

Around the barbeque at the picket line, talk would almost always turn to work. All sorts of complaints and insights would surface. There would be a discussion of some management stuff up, which would inevitably bring forward many examples which people wanted to talk about and indicate their frustration with how much better the place could be managed if only someone listened to them.

Joe from our machine shop who was a Catholic, Grouper supporter, with a tribe of kids, was always attacking the left. Until the last mass meeting he was strongly opposed to the strike. Once the strike started however he was one of the most reliable picketers and was always encouraging others to attend. He would get started on how badly the place was managed. As a highly skilled worker he was pissed off at how little his skills and initiative were used. He had worked there a long time so knew it well. Everyone was impressed at his ideas of how things could be improved. These kinds of discussions never occurred normally, but when they did they showed a deep understanding of the problems and a commitment to see their company managed much better. A pity that management never heard these discussions.

I said to Rupe, “You know Joe was talking with real knowledge and quite radical ideas about the place. Perhaps we should encourage him to be more active in the union when the strike is over”, Rupe’s response, “Ah maybe, but you’ve got to be very careful with those Groupers”.

It emerged during one such discussion that many of us experienced the same regular problem, which was getting drawings which were wrong, and which we had constantly told the draughting department needed to be corrected. In the meantime we went on and did the job as it was supposed to be done. In one hilarious case a decimal point was in the wrong position which meant without the initiative of the machinist, it would have been produced ten times larger than it was supposed to be.

During this discussion we decided not to do that any longer and would produce the component as per the drawing. However in doing so the person would inform their colleagues what they were doing, in order to ensure they had protection. Not long after the strike, Joe was the first person confronted with a wrong drawing. With great delight he proceeded to produce the component as per the drawing, and delivered them as usual to quality control. Well there was pandemonium as a little while later they came back to Joe complaining that they were wrong, and would have to be thrown out. "Surely he knew how they should be made".

They complained to the foreman Judge, and he also started castigating Joe. We all stopped work, gathered around and forcefully complained that we were sick and tired of wrong drawings. Joe was delighted to take such a stand to finally fix this irritating problem.

Judge immediately took the drawing to the draughting department and demanded they make the changes as required. While he was at it we pointed out many more problems, so we had him backward and forward for a couple of days. So it is possible to argue that the strike helped to solve a costly problem for the company which otherwise may have never surfaced. So they should have been grateful to us for being on strike.

The Trades Hall Council issued some press releases, but at one of the strike committee meetings somebody drew attention to the fact that there had been virtually nothing in the press about what was now a fairly significant dispute and what there had been was biased. The committee decided to do something about it immediately.

About thirty of us jumped on the bus and went down to the offices of the Herald and Weekly Times. Within no time we were milling around on the second floor asking to meet with the Editor in Chief. There was total panic as we were told we could not just barge in and see whoever we liked without an appointment. Anyway he was out. We said “OK we can wait”, as everybody proceeded to sit down on the floor and work came to a virtual standstill. Within ten minutes a constable put his head around the corner but, after Rupe had explained/harangued how important it was for the capitalist press to hear the story of ordinary people, he decided he had more important things to do elsewhere.

After about half an hour we were informed that the Editor in Chief “has just come in” and he would see a small group of us. We trooped into his office and noticed on the desk that they had urgently gathered the few, very small press reports buried on back pages. He proceeded to tell us that they had been fair and others had to have their stories in the press as well.

Rupe was in his element. Here he was in the citadel of the capitalist press and he wasn’t going to miss this opportunity. As he lectured them about the bias of the press, the importance of equal pay, the unions, the evils of capitalism and how one day society would be much fairer, and the people would own the media, they were transfixed as his eyebrows went up and down. I suspect they remembered that day and their political lecture for a long time.

We told the Editor in Chief that we had a meeting of about 1,500 strikers the next day to report on the negotiations and, unless there was fairer and more prominent reporting, we would urge them to boycott The Herald and The Sun, in favour of the Age and Argus. Sure enough the next day there was a reasonable report on page three outlining the latest negotiations. This continued to the end of the strike a few days later. This incident demonstrated the value of taking immediate and direct action on some occasions. Rupe talked about his confrontation with the capitalist press for a long time and how CIG workers had forced them to back down.

We weren’t the only ones to take such action around that time as the wharfies also stormed the Herald and Weekly Times office a couple of times. The upshot was that instead of lifting their standards, except under pressure, the Herald and Weekly Times’ response was to have a special heavy door installed that could be quickly slammed shut and locked in the event of unwelcomed intrusions. I suppose that’s fair enough because, if you want to concentrate on helping business to exploit workers more and attack their unions, you don’t want the likes of Rupe Ampfer and his threatening eyebrows intruding into your comfortable surrounds.

The naivete and stupidity of management at times is breathtaking. The CIG Equipment industrial relations officer lived only about 3-400 metres up the road from me. One evening at the beginning of the second week there was a knock at the door and when I opened it there he was, big grin on his face, an armful of beer and saying, “You like a drink Max, so I thought I would call in and we could share a beer, and I am sure we can sort this mess out in no time”. I was both enraged and insulted and chased him so hard down the path that he slammed into the gate and dropped and broke a couple of the bottles. He looked pathetic as he headed for his car as I also had refused his offer to clean up the mess. The story quickly got around the next day and the members made a meal out of it for months. Needless to say he didn’t last very long after the strike.

Well, as always in a strike, agreement has to be struck and in the third week our strike was over. CIG Equipment agreed that employment of women would be delayed for sometime, but when they were ready the unions would be informed and the women would receive equal pay. As so often with industrial disputes, although we had established a very important principle, the on the ground result would not happen for some time.

Our members were delighted with the victory and gathered next day to walk back in together with the shop stewards at their head and carrying Rupe on their shoulders. He was overwhelmed as his flock had stuck by him in a way that they had never had to do before. So ended what is still the largest and longest strike for equal pay in Australia. I don’t think most of the people involved were aware of the significance of their achievement.

As with most outcomes things don’t go exactly as one would like. The women did not start for quite some time. However the company in the meantime quietly moved virtually all those on third class machinist classification to second class. When the women finally came through the gate to work on the shopfloor they were all classified third class machinist. So while they got the right pay for that classification, they were still below nearly all the men. It took a few years for this to work through the system. The boss had a Pyrric victory and this has been an ongoing challenge for women ever since. How to ensure that they are not relegated to the lowest skilled and paid jobs. The battle continues.

It took a while for things to settle down. Management was peeved at having lost and as so often happens, proceeded to be very petty with little issues which were designed to show who was boss. This was Parker at his best. They banned us from having our meetings in the lunch room or even on site, which had been the practice forever and had been very convenient for everybody.

Normally we would wait until most were seated for lunch then report on whatever the issue was, a couple of members might speak, there would be a vote, and it was often over in 15 minutes, because mainly it was just keeping the members well informed. Rupe, with his eyebrows in full play, roared at Parker that “If that is the way you want it, two could play that game”. So with agreement from the members, meetings would wait until lunchtime was over. Then everyone would assemble at the gate, someone would immediately move an extension of time so the meeting would not even start until the siren went to return to work after lunch. On the odd occasion we even went off for the afternoon. Nothing like a sunny Friday after a lot of overtime, for workers to want to call it a day.

Every time this happened Parker would call us up to his office to lay the law down about an illegal stoppage. We were still under a no strike order. Rupe would proceed each time to forcefully explain how Parker was the cause. He would stare at every manager present to make sure they got the message. Sometimes he did not even speak to them but simply raised his eyebrows. It got to the stage where even middle and lower managers would confide to us about how they were sick to death of all this confrontation.

Finally Rupe’s prediction came true. After a few months of this petty tit for tat, we were called up to the office one afternoon to be told by the assistant manager that as of now he was the manager and Alan Parker had left. You can imagine Rupe’s reaction. A broad smile, his eyebrows literally dancing a jig, as he firmly told the new manager and his colleagues that he had predicted that from the time Parker started, and that they ought to take note.

As we were being informed in the office the message was going up on the notice boards. When we got back on the shopfloor there was a roar of delight and approval from the members. They had now been fully vindicated in the stand they had taken on a number of issues, but particularly on equal pay. We heard via guess who, none other than Dick May, that the board had begun to ask questions about the many disruptions to work, and that they had had to concede equal pay. It quickly became apparent that all this strife had started with the new manager Parker. When it didn’t subside as they expected after the strike, there could only be one cause. He had to be got rid of.

Things settled down after that and there were not many disruptions for many years. Although the union did not fully win back the right to meet in the lunchroom it could meet on site. CIG Equipment remained a strong union shop. The aforementioned Jim O’Neill was the organiser responsible for it. He continued to regale us with stories about Rupe for many years.

However some pettiness continued which often makes one wonder about management sanity at times. I had left CIG Equipment, with somewhat of a heavy heart I must say, in the first half of 1965 to work overseas. When I returned I worked fulltime for the Eureka Youth League. At the invitation of my old workmates, I visited the plant for the Xmas break up to catch up with them, see Rupe, and all the other fine people I had worked with. I arrived about 11am because I knew work would have ceased by then and there would have been a clean up, and people sitting around having a cleansing ale, waiting for the company Xmas lunch to begin.

I was warmly greeted by the security guard, and as I wandered through the plant was stopped and greeted by many people. By about 11.30 I had arrived at the machine shop, and quickly had a beer in hand and having a pleasant yarn. All of a sudden the manager arrived with the aforementioned security guard. He ordered the very embarrassed guy to escort me off the premises. My colleagues protested, one even asking the manager “Do you think Max is going to pull a strike on breakup day for Christssake”. To no avail. So several of the guys told him, against my protest, “you can stick your lunch up your arse, and we’ll go down to the Olympic Hotel with Max instead”. So I was frogged marched out, the security guy was very apologetic and we proceeded to have a great afternoon at the Olympic, which I think was the last time I ever drank there. You have to wonder sometimes about the logic of managers as they made enemies of a lot of loyal, long term employees that day, for absolutely no gain except to prove who was boss.

CIG Equipment continued for many years to make high quality welding, medical, spray paint, and other equipment, with a renowned brand name, but globalisation, slowly but surely, began to catch up. In the early nineties British Oxygen sold off worldwide all their equipment making operations to concentrate on their core business of industrial gas production. CIG Equipment was purchased in the early nineties by a group of managers, in what at the time was the largest management buyout ever in Australia. Interestingly they never asked the employees if they might like to be part of the ownership.

However things were already changing. Many of their products were starting to be imported. There were further break ups with medical equipment being hived off etc.. Finally, it closed altogether in the late nineties. It was sad to go past the empty, increasingly derelict buildings, which less than forty years before had been the most up to date plant of it’s kind in the country. One would have been sure that it was there to stay for decades longer.

It has now been razed. I stopped there recently to ponder. I heard a voice that sounded like Rupe’s. Sure enough when I looked hard I could see his eyebrows as he was addressing his beloved flock. There was Joe disagreeing with him, Mat very quietly making a point, Darby (because he looked like the jockey Darby Munro) leading the way to the pub on break up day, Bill the wonderful reliable dour Scot who rarely said much unless angry and then watch out, as always taking very detailed notes which would miraculously appear as neat minutes at our next shop committee meeting, Des running his SP book for any employees wanting to have a bet, (whom Rupe and I had to ask to choose between being a shop steward and the factory bookie as we didn’t like the idea of the shop steward winning money from his work colleagues, and he chose bookmaking as he made a nice income from it), the apprentices and young workers keen to find an excuse for a stoppage, Ken gently explaining to those with difficult English, what was going on, and the hundreds of others with wonderful skills and initiative, such as Raimondo the French/Italian who was a genius on the large vertical milling machine, which he could almost get to talk – both languages, - they were all there, but they weren’t there.

Or the time on the day of my old man’s retirement, when to the cheers of the whole shopfloor he proceeded to punch in his timecard numerous times until the timeclock was literally stuffed with a thousand bits of card and it nearly fell off the wall. Even if it was on retirement day, someone had challenged the tyranny of the timeclock. Only people who have their day timed to the minute can know the elation of stuffing it up.

A rich history of relationships, skills, disputes, laughter, loves, hates, the full catastrophe. Like the time when my foreman Judge, (an appropriate nickname as he had a rather tall and imperious presence with his judge like mop of curly red hair), a staunch Greensborough supporter who were the favourites, had bragged on the Friday, how the next day, they would thrash us in the 1964 Diamond Valley Football League grand final. He was thoroughly pissed off when Heidelberg, (whom I played for), beat them and I had played well. I didn’t surface until the Wednesday, still the worse for wear, but when I walked in, the machine shop gave a cheer and started a chant which was taken up by the whole shopfloor for Judge to come out of his office and congratulate me. After much cajoling, he agreed and with great ceremony and to the cheers of the whole shop floor, he graciously shook my hand. All gone and forgotten, such a rich history that rarely gets recorded. It means little except for those involved, and yet it is what makes our society what it is.

I shed a tear at the rubble that once was such a rich part of one’s life. I tried hard to remember all those wonderful individuals who made up such an incredible group. It was no good going to the Olympic Hotel to drown my sorrows as it was full of poker machines, cold, with no humanity and certainly no one there who would have remembered the strike, and few would even remember CIG Equipment.

Rupe was given a huge send off when he retired undefeated champion. He continued for many years organising musicians, with we suspect some ulterior motives, and lived to a good old age. Certainly the CIG bosses would have been pleased that they didn’t have to see those raised eyebrows ever again.

The story I heard was that when he arrived at the pearly gates with his union card in one hand and sax in the other, he didn’t have to say a word as when he raised his eyebrows, St Peter immediately recognised him and said “Welcome Rupe, I heard you were coming, and was told that you are probably the last of your kind, and we need some passion and principle around here, not to mention some decent musos”. Within days he had the harpists in the union, made sure the women were receiving equal pay, and had them playing a passible version of Solidarity Forever.

What was even more important and raised his eyebrows in joy, was that they agreed to become part of the reform group to defeat the Grouper leadership in the Musicians Union. Rupe was convinced that heaven did exist after all.

Well as they say, “How can you beat anyone who is on the side of the angels”