Trades Hall

A Living History Calls Time

By Peter Lewis

Margaret Morgan started with the Labor Council of NSW a few weeks after the building in Sussex Street was officially opened. Twenty nine years and seven secretaries later, Margaret retires from her combined roles of heart, soul and memory of the office.

	Margaret between her old bosses Ralph Marsh and John Ducker

It was never meant to be like this. When Margaret agreed to come and work for Ralph Marsh it was only for a couple of weeks, to help unpack all the Grace Brothers packing boxes that had been moved from the old Trades Hall building. On her first day Mr Marsh took her aside and said there was a problem. He needed someone to work on the switchboard and in reception. She agreed, providing he promised not to go crook on her when she decided to leave.

At the end of the year, the long-serving secretary pulled Margaret aside again. She was to be taken off switch because the Council's first full-time industrial officer, John MacBean, was starting and he needed an assistant. "I don't know anything about industrial work," she protested. "You'll like John," Marsh said. "I hope he's a very patient man," Margaret replied..

And the rest, as they say, is history.

For the best part of three decades, Margaret has run the office, through major industrial disputes, election campaigns and big wage cases. From the gestetner to the computer she has seen the role of industrial officers change, yet also stay the same - always about improving the lot of working people. Some things have got easier - no-one misses the cumbersome processes of filing documents that had to be type-written, with the mistakes corrected with the red paint that would fill the holes created by the gestetner.

It is the early seventies, that Margaret remembers as the area of greatest activity and excitement. Like the battle with the Electricity Commission for a 35-hour week, the case in the Industrial Relations Commission lasting 18 months. When the case celebrated its first birthday, the unions placed a big cake on the street outside the IRC. Margaret cut it and the picture appeared in the Daily Telegraph. The workers took a piece into the Commission and gave it to the president.

And the long-running dispute with the Water Board in 1972 where workers refused to fix burst mains. By the time it was finally resolved, people were taking buckets down to public parks to get water for their household. Then there was the annual brewery strike - just before each Christmas - and the regular transport strikes. During disputes like these it was not uncommon for a bomb threat being made on the Labor Council building. The Police would clear the building until the bomb squad moved in. Such passions around industrial action ...

There also been changes in the way the office has operated. In the 1970s officials were know as "Mr Marsh" and "Mr Ducker". "You didn't call people by their first names," Margaret recalls.. That all changed when Barrie Unsworth became secretary. On his first day in the top job he addressed the staff over morning tea and cake: "From hear on in it's not Mr Unsworth, but plain old Barrie," he said.

Over the years, many personalities have come and gone, including an awkward ABC cub reporter Bob Carr who once sat in the foyer all day waiting (in vain) to talk to Mr Ducker. He later split the ABC to take the position of media and education officer at the Labor Council where he would write the press releases and visiting schools. Not holding a drivers licence, Margaret remembers him taking off on foot or by public transport. "He was a great mimic and always good fun at staff gatherings ," she says, noting that Whitlam and Hawke were his specialities.

Margaret worked under seven secretaries, six of whom are still alive . All of these will attend her testimonial dinner tonight. Each was different, as Margaret recalls:

Ralph Marsh - Ralph was a man in his sixties, the elder statesman when I started here. A very gentle, fun character. He died in 1989.

John Ducker - Everyone called him the Godfather. He was a very wise, self-educated, listening man, always had time to listen to you. We used to say he'd come a long way from the ironworker with the sandwich in the brown paper bag to the tenth floor of 377.

Barrie Unsworth - Barrie went at everything with great gusto and enthusiasm, worked at 100 miles an hour and if you weren't prepared to match the pace you may as well have packed up and gone home.

John McBean - A very hard worker, industrial relations was definitely his calling in life - he was just the best in a dispute. A very shy man, but also very caring.

Michael Easson - Michael was an academic, not off the shop floor so he was very different to the previous secretaries. He was a very nice young man, caring of the staff and easy to work with.

Peter Sams - Peter was everyone's cuddly bear, the young friend rather than the boss. You always knew you could getaround Peter - if you wanted something you know he'd say yes.

Michael Costa - Very much like Barrie, high energy, wanting everyone to match his pace. He's confident to make the snap decision and trust his gut. He likes to give out that brash facade, but that's where it ends - underneath there's the gentle caring Michael.

************

Margaret leaves the Council with warm feelings: "I've always said you don't stay in a job this long unless you are interested in it and felt like you had some input into the place.".

She's confident unions will survive, "everything goes through phases and ups and downs, but the Labor Council will still be here long after we've all gone."

As for Margaret, she says she's looking forward to retirement, slowing down after 45 years in the workforce. She'll spend more time in her home and the garden, more time with friends, more charity work with Diabetes Australia and the nursing home that cared for her husband before he passed away.

Everyone at Labor Council wishes her well, confident in the knowledge that if we need to tap into her vast supplies of corporate knowledge she will only be a phone call away.

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  Issue 26 contents

»	Workers to Star in Second Wave Rally
»	Oakdale Injustice: Six Weeks Is All It Takes
»	Chook War Widens - Woman Who Walked Wants Job Back
»	Rural Council Workers Push to Quit ALP
»	Push for Action on Millennium Leave Bug
»	Pay Equity Inquiry Sidelined
»	NRMA Candidates Address Union Concerns
»	Ceiling Dust a Deadly Cocktail
»	Sex Discrimination Head Warns Against Complacency
»	DIR Launches Indigenous Employment Unit
»	"Big Drum Up" For East Timor
»	Eric Lee Public Forum
»	STOP PRESS: Fire Bans Lifted But Dispute Not Over

»	Guest Report
»	Sport
»	Trades Hall
»	Piers Watch

»	Piers Fans Fires
»	Some Views Of Einstein
»	Group Homes Sell-Off Fears
»	Privatisation Of Prince Of Wales Hospital Maintenance Department
»	Call for Wage Freeze Action

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