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  Issue No 100 Official Organ of LaborNet 29 June 2001  

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The Locker Room

Pumping Iron on Sussex Street


Material leaked from Labor Council archives reveals the existence during the 1970s of a gymnasium built for union officials, reports Peter Moss.

 
 

Sussex Street Fitness Regime circa 1980

A 27-year-old press release plucked from Labor Council archives shows that in sport, as in life, there is little new under the sun.

Written by a young Bob Carr - then the Council's press officer - the release announced the 1974 opening of a gymnasium in the peak body's Sussex Street headquarters.

The Labor Council Secretary of the time, Ralph Marsh, hoped the gym would meet the needs of stressed out officials, as well as setting an example for all employers to follow.

The release was unearthed by two of today's Labor Council identities, librarian Neale Towart and organising & research assistant Paul Howes.

They were struck by the themes shared by the 1974 release and an article - Are desk potatoes holding our movement back? - I wrote for this column a few weeks back.

In Bob Carr's release, Ralph Marsh refers to a 1968 report on the health of trade union officials.

'(The report) found that a majority of the union officials were suffering from great nervous tension and, in some cases, symptoms such as insomnia, headache and indigestion,' the release said.

'Many had high blood pressure with the risk of coronaries and there were a lot of ulcers.

'These conditions were a result of the heavy pressures on trade union officials - long hours, irregular meals, frequent night meetings and long periods of travelling.'

Barrie Unsworth, a Labor Council organiser in 1974 and later NSW Premier, was a key mover behind the establishment of the gym.

He told Workers Online that 'people were far less health conscious in those days'.

'Spending hours in the pub, filling up with alcohol and cigarettes - that was accepted. Pursuits like jogging were virtually unheard of,' said Barrie.

In 1974, Barrie was the union representative on the State National Fitness Council.

Approaching the age of 40, he had also developed a keen personal interest in health and fitness.

'We were campaigning for employers to provide free or subsidised exercise facilities and we had to lead by example,' he said.

While the gear in the union gym was primitive by today's standards, it was well used at first by officials of the many affiliated unions located in Trades Hall and the adjacent Labor Council building.

Men and women trained separately at the gym, using equipment which according to the press release included 'an exercise bike with speedo, a jogging machine, a vibrator, a rowing machine, an abdominal board and a sauna'.

But as unions grew and found office space outside the traditional buildings, gym patronage declined.

Five or six years after its opening, the last barbell was lifted in the Labor Council gymnasium.

But the gym was not the only manifestation of the union movement's sporting drive during the 1970s.

After surveys showed that bus drivers had severe health problems, sports institutes were founded at bus depots across Sydney with the cooperation of unions.

'Drivers played table tennis and billiards, but running races were the big thing,' remembers Barrie Unsworth. 'There were regular inter-depot races.'

Barrie remains a staunch advocate for the responsibility of employers to assist workers in keeping fit. He is a Director of Delta Electricity which subsidises gym membership for employees.

But Barrie recalls with sadness the deaths of two labour movement figures - 'two of the fittest blokes around' - who died while playing sport.

One was Frank Stewart, a former rugby league player with Canterbury and Whitlam's Minister for Tourism and Recreation.

Frank, who officially opened the Labor Council gym on May 15, 1974, died a few years later during a squash game.

The other was Paul Landa, who held the Attorney-General and other portfolios in the Wran Government. Paul died in 1986 while playing tennis.

Peter Moss is a Director of Lodestar Communications.


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*   View entire issue - print all of the articles!

*   Issue 100 contents

In this issue
Features
*  Interview: Baptism of Fire
It�s been a rugged few weeks for Labor Council�s new honcho. But John Robertson accepts it comes with the territory.
*
*  Politics: Seven Days that Shook Our World
Chris Christolodulou surveys the wreckage from a week when the political and industrial wings of the labour movement collided.
*
*  History: History Sometimes Repeat
This is not the first Labor government to attack workers compensation entitlements. Some believe the Unsworth Government�s 1987 reforms were the beginning of the end for that administration.
*
*  Technology: Unions Online: Where To Now?
Social Change Online's Mark McGrath goes looking for what's on the virtual horizon for the union movement.
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*  Media: The Printed Word Revisited
Rowan Cahill looks at the resurgence of the workers press and the lessons for unions in better communicating with their members.
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*  Unions: Time For Second Gear
The trends are in the right direction but unions are still drinking small beer in the IT world and need to allocate more resources to communications generally, argues Noel Hester.
*
*  Satire: Texan Governor Faces Execution
The governor of Texas has been sentenced to death row after a jury found him guilty of killing hundreds of people.
*
*  Review: The Insider
Neale Towart looks at a literary anti-hero who brings the factional machinations and double-deals of the ALP machine out of the back rooms and into the light.
*

News
»  Picket MPs Face More WorkCover Heat
*
»  Della Tries a Henry VIII
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»  Privatisation Opens New WorkCover Front
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»  The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Virtual Democracy
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»  Bank Staff Forced to Flog Insurance
*
»  Email Surveillance Report Gathers Dust
*
»  Fifty Years On, Women Still Short-Changed
*
»  Firefighters Withdraw Strike Threat
*
»  Telstra�s Sells Off Skills Base
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»  BHP - Billiton Faces $1.8 Billion OHS Claim
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»  Activist Notebook
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»  STOP PRESS: Quite Frankly, Reith Goes!
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Columns
»  The Soapbox
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»  The Locker Room
*
»  Trades Hall
*
»  Tool Shed
*

Letters to the editor
»  Picket at Parliament: Police Respond
*
»  Time to Break
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»  Well Done for the Ton
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»  The Life and Soul of the Party
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»  A Tuckpointer Is ...
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