
Issue No 73		13 October 2000

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History

Labour History Under Seige Again

By Lucy Taksa - History Editor

The Friends of the Noel Butlin Archives Centre have recently been informed of proposed changes to the Noel Butlin Archives Centre (NBAC), changes that will cut staff by more than 50% and leave the Archives mothballed in the tunnel where the repository is situated.

The ANU is failing in its legal and moral obligations to depositors of records and researchers and the general public who use the records held there by failing to provide funding for the continuation of the operation of the NBAC even at its current minimal level.

The Friends have launched a media campaign to raise awareness of the threat to the NBAC and are appealing to all who have an interest in Australia's history--social, commercial, pastoral, industrial and labour history--and see the value of preserving the unique documentary records of important aspects of that history to call on the ANU honour its commitments and provide proper funding for the NBAC. The money is there: ANU had a surplus of some $80 million dollars last financial year and has been able to find millions to bail out its failing commercial arm, ANUTech.

The Importance of the Archives

The records held in the NBAC cover the working lives of people who were associated with all of Australia's major industries (pastoral, mining, heavy industry, manufacturing, the waterfront, etc.). For most industries there are employer, employee and peak body records, a degree of integration rare anywhere in the world.

The records, many of them generated by companies and unions that no longer exist, constitute a vital element of Australia's cultural heritage and have at least comparable value to that of old buildings and the records of radio, TV and film.

The value of the NBAC is recognised across Australia and the people who consult its records come from all Australian states.

The NBAC has become a national institution and in the interests of the serious study of Australian society its holdings must be preserved and public access to them maintained.

The Crisis

For more than forty years the NBAC was funded from the budget of the Research School of Social Sciences at ANU. Since 1994 the staff have been reduced from 6 professional archivists and 2 support staff to just 2.5 archivists and 1 support staff with an operating budget of $250,000 p.a. In late August 1997 the Research School of Social Sciences announced that, to save money, the Centre would be closed at the end of 1997, with its collection being either mothballed or, more likely, dispersed or returned to depositors.

The Friends and allied organisations and individuals from around Australia and overseas rallied to save the Noel Butlin Archives Centre from closure by a vigorous lobbying and publicity campaign. A compromise deal was worked out with ANU central administration whereby the Centre would become part of the ANU Library and be funded (at $240,000pa) until the end of 2000, by which time it had to be self-funding. The ANU would make available the interest from $2,000,000 in its Endowment for Excellence if $1,000,000 was raised from external sources (with the ANU matching that dollar for dollar). This would provide the Centre with about $150,000 p.a., with the shortfall of $100,000 p.a. to be made up from charges to researchers and depositors.

This plan was never achievable but it kept the NBAC going in the short term. No cultural institution of this type in Australia has been able to raise $1m in donations. While work continues on fund-raising for the Centre (only about $100,000 has been raised so far), even if it got to $1,000,000 that would be nowhere near sufficient to keep the Centre operational as charges to researchers and depositors cannot provide anything near the $100,000pa needed.

The ANU had since agreed to continue the current funding arrangements for 2001 but has retracted that agreement. The ANU now proposes to fund the Archives at c.$150,000 (including overheads) in 2001 & 2002, with no recurrent budgetary commitment for 2003.

The ANU must maintain at least the current funding for the Centre, but so far refuses to do so. Therefore, it looks increasingly likely that a similar campaign to that mounted in 1997 will be needed in the near future. That is why the Friends needs your help and participation.

Background

The Archives were formed as an initiative of the Economics Department of the Research School of Social Sciences at the instigation of Noel Butlin in the early 1950s to collect primary research material of the economic development of Australia after the gold rushes of the nineteenth century. In 1957 it became a Unit of the Research School of Social Sciences and soon afterwards extended its operations to include records of the labour movement.

As the "Business Archives at the ANU" and (from 1975) the "ANU Archives of Business and Labour". The Centre's major collecting focus for more than 40 years has been the records of companies and trade unions that represent Australian industry at a national and regional level. This emphasis continues. In 1992 the name of the Archives was changed to honour the memory of its founder (who died in 1991).

The Noel Butlin Archives Centre (NBAC) is the oldest non-government collecting archives in Australia. It houses the largest collection of business and trade union records in the country. The NBAC collection consists of 13 km of records, including the records of over 170 business, records of over 240 employer, employee and professional organisations, and 150 personal collections related to both labour and business. The NBAC, combined with the University of Melbourne Archives, are the main repositories in Australia for the documentation of the working lives of Australians and Australia's commercial, rural and industrial heritage.

The Centre also holds the National Aids Archives Collection which aims to preserve educational material relating to HIV/AIDS and the records of non-government organisations producing such material and active in related areas. The initial collecting phase was funded by the Department of Health, Housing and Community Services through the AIDS Education Section of the Communicable Diseases Branch. This collection is unique within Australia and no other institution actively collects such archival material.

The position of University Archivist was created in 1998. Dr Sigrid McCausland was appointed as the inaugural University Archivist. The University Archivist has supervisory control of both the ANU Archives and the Noel Butlin Archives Centre. Prior to 1998 the ANU did not have any accommodation for its own Archives and the Centre consequently looked after a lot of its departmental collections and provided archival advice to members of staff. The two archives share facilities including storage areas, conservation supplies, photocopying and facilities for researchers.

The Centre, which in 1998 celebrated the 45th anniversary of its first accession, collects the permanently valuable records of Australian companies, trade unions, employer and professional associations and industry bodies, ensures their physical well being and makes them available for research.

Its holdings date from the mid 1820s to the early 1990s and in total represent a comprehensive coverage of Australia's industrial and business history. The Centre is unique in Australia in the spread and depth of its holdings in both business and employee/employer records. It is the only institution in Australia holding such a wide range of labour movement records which are balanced not only by the business holdings (which frequently complement the union records) but also by the records of industry and employer organisations.

Only the University of Melbourne Archives is in any way comparable. Its specialisation in mining & company records and those of Melbourne based engineering and other companies, compliments the heavy pastoral legacy of the NBAC and the more nationally orientated industrial records of later NBAC collecting, such as CSR Ltd, Tooth & Co Ltd, Burns Philp, Adelaide Steamship Co, and so on.

Clientele and Usage

The main category of user is naturally comprised of academics from ANU and interstate and international universities and scholarly institutions. This includes representatives from nearly every tertiary institution in Australia and from every Australian State. Such visitors usually plan their visits months ahead and work on projects of significant length (from 3-5 years) so their visits usually cover a number of years. The Centre's staff undertakes significant liaison with these clients and assists them whenever possible so that their visits are productive and efficient.

The second major category of users consists of members of the general public and various private organisations. Partly this clientele is drawn from those conducting local and family history research that could involve a one off or a series of visits.

Another group comes from the non-university professionals active in the heritage area - architects doing heritage studies on buildings and sites for municipal and city councils, people seeking details about hotels which are to be renovated, even garden historians seeking to records or restore historic gardens. Lately various indigenous groups or their representatives have been seeking the history of various portions of land (native title inquiries).

Additionally the Centre hosts a number of visits each year from local, interstate and international visitors and groups who come to be shown how the Centre operates. These range from students in the postgraduate diploma course in Archives Administration from the University of NSW to students doing management degree courses at University of Canberra and to international visitors from similar collecting institutions and libraries.

The Centre also conducts tours and exhibitions for the general public. Recent tours include:

Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies - Family History Unit / National Family History Workshop

Australian Society of Archivist, ACT Branch�

ANU - Economic History class

ANU - Australian at Work. Australian Labour History class.

The University of the Third Age (numerous groups)

Pacific History Association (including representatives from Pacific nations.

ANU School Holiday Program and

Australian Society for the Study of Labour History

Recent exhibitions include:

Australians at Play: Picnics, Sport and Olympic Fever in Australian Cultural Life. Using NBAC records exclusively. (Launched by Greg Cornwell.)

In the South Seas: Landscapes and faces (Burns Philp & Co Collection). Prepared for the Millennial conference of the Pacific History Association.

Supporting statements from Australia's leading historians

Stuart Macintyre

The Noel Butlin Archives are one of this country's great historical treasures. They consist of the records of major businesses and trade unions reaching back well into the nineteenth century.

It is here that you can find the documentary records of the pastoral industry, mining, shipping, manufacturing and other enterprises around which the Australian economy grew. Here also you find the records of the shearers' union, the miners, the waterside workers and also of the

Australian Council of Trade Unions, as well as those of the National Farmers Federation.

Together these records are our most important source for the history of enterprise and working life.

The collection is named after the late Noel Butlin, who first assembled such records as he pioneered the economic history of Australia. He was a leading researcher at the Australian National University, and his research school entered into agreements with the donors of the papers.

It also made agreements with other collecting institutions, including the National Library and the state libraries, that it would accept a national role in this area of manuscript collection.

Some years ago the Research School of Social Sciences sought to repudiate its custodial responsibilities. That brought a storm of protest and the University Library took over management of the Noel Butlin Archives. Now it appears there are to be further cuts and researchers are threatened with the mothballing of the Archives.

Historians, archivists and librarians are horrified by this vandalism. Business, professional and union representatives are highly concerned by the irresponsibility of a public institution.

It is unthinkable that the Research School, which receives block funding from the Commonwealth for its national research role, should throw off its obligations and endanger such a crucial national asset.

Perhaps Professor Chubb, the newly appointed Vice-Chancellor who takes office soon, will draw the ANU back from this threat to the good name of the University. Perhaps our Commonwealth Parliament, which provides the funding for the University, will step in.

Future generations would find it hard to comprehend that such a vital resource should be squandered.

Resolution of the Australian Historical Association

Received from the President, Professor Jill Roe.

The Australian Historical Association (AHA) views with deep alarm the proposal to close off the NBAC at the end of this year and to dispense with professional archival services on-site. The AHA wishes it to be understood that the plan to absorb the NBAC in the University Library at the end of this year is not a viable step from the point of view of academic and

professional historians.

The AHA calls on the ANU to indicate good faith with regard to the legitimate interests of the historical profession in this country by maintaining open access and professional archival services at the NBAC in 2002 AND BEYOND.

Professor Jill Roe, President, Australian Historical Association

The Noel Butlin Archives Centre is again in dire need of friends!

In Issue 44 of Workers Online, 3 March 2000, I raised a call to arms in support of the Noel Butlin Archives. Numerous readers responded to the call recognising that this repoistory is one of the key centres of the labour movements' collective memory. And like hard won labour traditions, it continues to face attack from the rationalists.

Send your support to:

THE FRIENDS OF THE NOEL BUTLIN ARCHIVES CENTRE

ANU LPO Box A231

CANBERRA ACT 2601

E-mail or fax your support for the NBAC to the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Deane Terrell.

E-mail: [email protected]

Fax: 02 6257 3292

View entire issue - print all of the articles!

Issue 73 contents

Interview: Righting The Wrongs
Improving the lives of Aboriginal people can't be taken out of the context of the economy, welfare and other areas says Bob McMullan, Shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.

Economics: At The Mercy Of Gamblers
The plunge of the Australian dollar relative to the greenback has consequences for Aussie workers according to Frank Stillwell.

History: Labour History Under Seige Again
The Friends of the Noel Butlin Archives Centre have recently been informed of proposed changes to the Noel Butlin Archives Centre (NBAC), changes that will cut staff by more than 50% and leave the Archives mothballed in the tunnel where the repository is situated.

Workplace: Fighting The Flexible Firm
We are told that hardship and exploitation at work is dying out, and the new economy offers opportunity, freedom and job satisfaction for all. Richard Sennett unveils the true nature of the flexible workplace.

Safety: Being bossed around is bad for your health
A survey of more than 3,000 Australian workers has revealed that some 54% of workers experience intimidating behaviour in their workplace. In almost 85% of cases it is employers, managers and supervisors who are identified as the culprits.

Unions: Discrimination
New to the union and the maritime industry and with only a few days casual work to live off, Stephen Rolls courageously spoke up against individual contracts during a job interview with Burnie Port Corp.

International: Serbian Workers and Their Unions Fight for Freedom
Serbian workers and their unions have been at the forefront of the struggle for democracy in Yugoslavia as they led a general strike in response to attempts by President Slobodan Milosevic to nullify the defeat he faced in the Sept. 24 election.

Satire: A few more years of civilised brutality will advantage Aborigines: Ruddock
CANBERRA, Tuesday: The Minister for Reconciliation Philip Ruddock has defended his comments to French newspaper Le Monde claiming that Aborigines were disadvantaged because they were late in coming into contact with developed civilisations.

Review: Poetry For Workers By Workers
Poems about the trials and tribulations of a waitress and what you learn in a chocolate factory are among the gems from the 925 anthology.

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