The Locomotive Enginemen: A History of the West Australian Locomotive Engine Drivers’, Firemen’s and Cleaners' Union

By Bobbie Oliver

This book explores the social phenomenon of the rise and decline of trade unionism in 20th century Australia through the history of one particular union, Western Australia’s longest running industrial union (1898–1999), the West Australian Locomotive Engine Drivers’, Firemen’s and Cleaners’ Union [WALEDF&CU].
The union’s history provides a means for examining the influence of the British industrial diaspora on the development of Australian trade unionism; unique features of the Australian industrial system, and reasons for the mid-20th century dominance of unionism, and its relatively sharp decline a since the 1970s.
Chapters contain discussion of the union’s formation; how its progress in obtaining recognition and improved wages and working conditions for members compared with similar unions in Eastern Australia and Britain; the impact of two world wars the Great Economic Depression of the 1930s, and the effects of arbitration, industrial action, changing technologies, privatisation and amalgamation.
In the concluding chapter, the differences that enabled the British footplate union, ASLEF, to survive while the WALEDF&CU was forced to amalgamate with other transport unions are examined, and the author concludes that, along with the debilitating effects of mass redundancies sparked by rationalisation policies in the rail industry, disunity within the rank and file was a major cause of the union’s demise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9780987567093

Book preview

Federation

Chapter 1

Beginnings: No easy task

The life of a railwayman, 1890s

There was no union [in Western Australia] to stand up for the rights of the [railway] worker and no Labour party to appeal to. These conditions started small group meetings in 1897 at Fremantle, Perth, Northam, Southern Cross and Kalgoorlie. The groundwork of the union was done at those group meetings. It was no easy task and by no means popular to talk unionism in those days. An atmosphere of military rule overhung workers under the Crown. Any person suspected of ambition towards establishing a Union was called an agitator – an enemy to progress and to his country. Workers could be dismissed without a reason being given; the foreman’s word was law.¹

Thus wrote Western Australia’s first labour historian, William Somerville, of conditions for railway workers in the State, even on government-owned lines, in the 1890s.

The life of a railway man, whether driving or firing on the footplate of a steam locomotive, was arduous and dangerous; responsibility far outstripped the remuneration, and change was slow, whether in Australia or Britain, with which numerous comparisons can be drawn when considering the development of footplate unions.² More than two decades later, in May 1920, Jack Bromley, Secretary of the British footplate men’s union, the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen [ASLEF], addressed a meeting of the National Wages Board, putting a case for engine drivers’ wages to be increased to two shillings and sixpence an hour. He eloquently described what life was like for enginemen employed on some of the busier routes of Britain’s numerous privately owned railway companies.

During a busy time of the day, the route would carry 2-3,000 people. If you pass [a] signal [at danger] because you have a broken gauge glass, or a backdraught from the firebox…and cause an accident that loses a life, you stand to be charged with manslaughter. If you have an accident but no one is killed, you stand before an enquiry in a quiet room like this and it is quoted against you that in the hurly-burly and turmoil of your work you will be in trouble if you cannot show that there are extenuating circumstances. You take this risk, you take a train there and back passing all those signals, and for that work you are given half-a-crown. You would not do it for that, but that is what we are asking – 2s. 6d. an hour for the responsibility, the skill, the danger, and the serious nature of our occupation.³

No other machine carries the mystique and romance of the locomotive steam engine. In the thousands of railway histories produced throughout the world, much space is devoted to these ‘fire-breathing’ machines that seemed imbued with a life of their own, and to their designers and designs, production and capacities, the systems upon which they ran, and the economic contribution of the railways to the capitalist era. Much less has been written of the men (and sometimes women) who worked in one of the world’s most dangerous jobs, standing, for hours at a stretch, exposed to extremes of heat and cold, on a constantly shifting footplate, controlling hundreds of tons of locomotive and rolling stock, often at high speeds, and with responsibility for not merely their own lives and freight, but those of hundreds of passengers. As Ralph Harrington has observed, the engine driver in literature is frequently either absent or distant, or valorised unrealistically as a ‘heroic’ figure with almost mystical powers.⁴ Even less has been written about their attempts to organise themselves to improve wages and working conditions.⁵ One aspect of railway history can hardly be understood without the consideration and understanding of the others; to devote so much research to the machine and so little to the men who worked it, therefore, is certainly remiss.

The aims of this history

This history of the West Australian Locomotive Engine Drivers’, Firemen’s and Cleaners Union [hereafter the WALEDF&CU], sets out to achieve a number of objectives. Firstly, it aims to contextualise the union by examining its origins and development in relation to similar unions in Britain and elsewhere in Australia. In the space of two decades, footplate men’s unions were founded in Britain (ASLEF, 1880) and all of the Australian colonies – except Victoria, where, as we shall see, a union had already been established. The WALEDF&CU, the last of these unions, was founded in Western Australia in 1898 after previous attempts to form a footplate men’s union had failed. What did these unions have in common? To what extent were the Australian unions influenced by British immigrants, who had experience of union membership in either ASLEF or the general railway workers’ union, the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants [ASRS] – subsequently the National Union of Railwaymen [NUR]? Was the WALEDF&CU an example of the much-vaunted Western Australian exceptionalism from the rest of Australia?⁶ Western Australian [WA] railway workers were not involved in the 1917 General Strike, which paralysed New South Wales [NSW] and Victoria, and also impacted upon Queensland, deeply affecting the railway unions in those states. Consequently, the WALEDF&CU membership did not experience the blacklisting suffered by union members in NSW – mostly notably Ben Chifley (Prime Minister of Australia 1945-49), who was initially sacked, then reinstated at the lower grade of fireman, reappointed as driver and demoted again several times in the years between 1917 and 1928 when he entered Parliament.⁷

In recording the history of this one union, this book explores the social phenomenon of the rise and decline of trade unionism in 20th century Australia. It examines the influence of the British industrial diaspora on the development of Australian trade unionism; characteristics that distinguished the Australian (and New Zealand) industrial systems from the rest of the world, and led to the dominance of unionism mid-20th century, and the relatively sharp decline of union membership and influence in Australia, together with the impact of amalgamations to form ‘super unions’, from the 1970s.

Locomotive railway engines were the first machines to carry passengers across land at a speed faster than a galloping horse. To say that they revolutionised transport is an understatement. Writing of the 1860s – the period when the first railwaymen’s unions were forming in Britain and Australia – ASLEF historian Phillip Griffiths observes that: In the eyes of the British public, the railway industry epitomised enterprise, progress and empire. In this modern enterprise, the engine drivers enjoyed the highest pay and status of all but the chief engineer and stationmaster.⁸ Even so, the pay was poor and the working conditions dangerous. The lesser skilled firemen and engine cleaners to some extent shared this status as ‘footplate men’, partly because of the early development of what today is known as a ‘career path’, leading from cleaners to firemen to drivers. For this reason, these grades increasingly saw their interests as being in common, and differing from those of other railway staff. This career path was the same in Britain and Australia, and it is therefore appropriate to begin with a comparison of the British and Australian origins of footplate unions.

British origins

The first British footplate union, the Engine Drivers’ and Firemen’s United Society, was formed in London in 1865, some 40 years after the opening of the Stockton to Darlington line at the beginning of the rail transport era. The union lasted less than two years, crushed by the North Eastern Railway Company in mid 1867, after a bitter strike to obtain a 10-hour day.⁹

The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants [ASRS], founded in Britain in 1872, was a general union for all grades of railway workers.¹⁰ Perhaps made more cautious by the experience of the enginemen’s union, the ASRS eschewed strikes. In a report published in 1876, the Society mentioned the malpractice of railway companies, yet stoutly claimed that:

Our policy of avoiding all conflicts, except such as are decided by reason and the force of public opinion, has yet enabled us to hold our own, and to maintain under threatening circumstances the advantages secured to railwaymen by our Union in former times.¹¹

While the ASRS soon gained a membership of over 13,000, the union estimated that in 1876 some 40,000 railway workers remained un-unionised. Given the risks of persecution and job loss, in an age when the strike was their only means of enforcing collective demands, and grievances were rarely assuaged, many railwaymen failed to see the advantage of joining a society whose statement of beliefs, or Catechism, included the following question and answer:

Does the Society encourage strikes? No, it avoids them as an evil to masters and men. But it courts favour from the public and the Press by acting with moderation, and its members with self-respect.¹²

This was an ineffective strategy in such physically and legally hazardous work. Evidence collected by the 1877 Royal Commission into the Railways showed that in the years 1874-6, 3,982 people were killed and 16,762 injured on British railways and of these, railway servants suffered 2,249 fatalities and 10,305 injuries. According to the Board of Trade, most accidents and deaths were caused by the employees’ own misconduct or want of caution.¹³ More importantly from the point of union organisation, the findings of the Royal Commission revealed that, on top of a 12-hour shift, drivers sometimes did 10 hours overtime at a stretch, and that four to five hours overtime was common. One driver told of three successive shifts of 16 hours or longer, beginning at 7.30 am and on the third day not ending until 11 or 12 at night. He testified that he could hardly keep his eyes open. When he reported his condition to his Superintendent, he was asked to retract his words or face being dismissed. He refused to retract and was dismissed.

Sometimes men worked more than 30 hours consecutively, snatching an hour or two’s sleep on the coal tender when the train was shunted into a siding.¹⁴ In such conditions it is hardly surprising that accidents were frequent, yet mostly the driver and fireman were held responsible. Although the Royal Commission’s Report avoided blaming the railway companies, it did recommend methods for greater safety, including continuous brakes, interlocking points and signals, continuous footboards, speed restrictions on unsafe roads, rail crossings at stations, and the extension of Companies’ liabilities for injuries to their servants.¹⁵

Some sections of the footplate grades lost confidence in the general railway workers’ union, believing that it would never address their grievances. In October 1879, the Great Western Railway Company [GWR] declared that men would get a pay rise only if they performed particular types of work, extra to the normal 12-hour day. A group of GWR employees, including a man named Charles Perry, realising the ASRS would not protect them against this exploitation, took the initiative and formed a deputation to see GWR’s Director, Sir Daniel Gooch. Gooch looked at their petition and exclaimed, Damn the signatures! Have you got the men to back them up?¹⁶ Gooch laid down a challenge and the enginemen took it up. Perry went away to organise.

ASLEF

The first branch of the Associated Society of Locomotive Enginemen, Firemen and Cleaners [ASLEF] formed at Sheffield on 7 February 1880.¹⁷ The union established its headquarters in Leeds and employed a General Secretary at £2 per week, with an assistant, paid 30 shillings. By the end of 1890, the union reported a membership of 3,600. Members were attracted to a union that offered a form of insurance against illness, suspension or loss of employment. By the end of 1891, the union comprised 84 branches, with 874 members on full benefits. In that year’s Annual Report, the Secretary blamed a considerable increase in sickness payouts on an influenza epidemic, and the increase of fines and suspensions paid on the cruel injustice of the system. Men could be fined or suspended – sometimes for several days or even weeks – for misdemeanors as minor as arriving less than five minutes late at their train’s destination. If a life was lost in an accident, the driver faced a manslaughter charge, resulting in several years in prison if found guilty – which he almost inevitably was.

IMAGE 1, PREVIOUS PAGE: ASLEF Poster. MSS.379/R/1/1 (Records of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) Modern Records centre, The University of Warwick. Published with the permission of the Modern Records Centre, The University of Warwick.

In 1891, ASLEF’s General Secretary, Thomas Sunter, wrote:

…if men are to be fined, we think it should only be done after a thorough investigation, by representatives of the companies and the men. It is a very serious matter for a man to be fined for a most frivolous matter to the amount of a day’s wages, or, in some instances, to the extent of £5.¹⁸

In order to alleviate the financial distress that such punishments caused to staff and their families, the union from its inception began reimbursing fines, and paying lost wages and legal defence out of its Protection Fund.

Despite the union’s attempts at amelioration, however, these injustices remained a constant irritant. In 1887, staff of the Midland Railway Company struck as a result of the Company imposing severe penalties for small offences.¹⁹ A driver was suspended for 12 days for delaying the train three minutes at Trent; fines were imposed for coal falling off the tender, and even for refusing to pass a signal at danger; but the spark was the abolition of the guaranteed week, which had been in operation for some time.²⁰ When the Midland men came out on strike, their action was not sanctioned by ASLEF; however, after three days the union instructed those members who had waited for official word to ‘cease work’. ‘Blacklegging’ was never an option with ASLEF. The company won using unorganised, imported labour. The aftermath of dismissals included two of the union executive, Tom Ball and Henry Shuttleworth. The strike cost ASLEF £3,000.²¹

Soon afterwards, the union employed lawyers to fight its first major legal case on behalf of Driver Taylor and Fireman Davies, who were charged with manslaughter after a crash at Hexthorpe, South Yorkshire.²² In evidence before the court, witnesses admitted that Taylor’s train had a clear road, that the appropriate signals were ‘off’, and that the block system of signalling had been temporarily suspended owing to congestion; yet, in spite of these mitigating factors, the driver and fireman were placed in the dock, rather than the railway management who had made the decisions. ASLEF’s lawyers won the case, assisted by the technical knowhow supplied by the union. It was a significant victory. The membership of the society rose to 2,067, as the case caused a sensation around Britain.²³ It was arguably the first step in the long road to railway unions gaining recognition in the eyes of the employers.

Australian origins

The origins of the various Locomotive Engine Drivers’ Unions founded in Australia occurred in similarly adverse conditions to those existing in Britain. The Locomotive Engine Drivers’ Association of Victoria, which formed in 1861, four years prior to the first British union, initially consisted only of drivers but in 1872 it expanded to include firemen, and later also admitted cleaners. In 1902, the union’s name was changed to the Locomotive Engine Drivers, Firemen and Cleaners’ Association of Victoria. Unlike some other footplate unions, which had sporadic beginnings, it is claimed that the Victorian Association remained in existence from the time it was formed in 1861, and that by the first decade of the 21st century, it was the oldest continuing railway union in the world.²⁴ From 1854 until 1865, private companies owned Victoria’s colonial railways, but gradually their operations were taken over by the government-owned Victorian Railways.²⁵

Originally established under the Victorian Railways Department Act 160 of 1862, the railways in the colony of Victoria were deemed temporary and therefore not placed under the same laws as the rest of the Public Service. This was remedied by the Victorian Railways Act of 1883 (No. 767), which put railways under the control and administration of Commissioners, to whom were granted absolute discretion in employing, retaining, dealing with, classifying, or getting rid of all railway employees. According to a legal opinion given to the Locomotive Engine Drivers’ Union in 1907, The Commissioners were given mastery of all employees so that they could remove any of them at will, no matter how well conducted [they were], and appoint others in their stead.²⁶ The Commissioners could place employees in such ranks and positions as they thought fit; employees were compelled to obey, and if they refused they could be dismissed. Thus, government railway workers were virtually in the same position as the employees of the privately owned British railway companies.

Although the employees’ method of appointment was regulated by the 1883 Act, there was little benefit for Victorian railway men until the Railways Act of 1890 granted compensation rights and other privileges and immunities to workers who had been employed since 1883. In particular, the 1890 Act applied to employees dismissed for any reason other than misconduct, but it also contained retrograde legislation. Section 92 enabled the Commissioners to make, alter and repeal regulations for determining relative rank, position or grade in duties and conduct of the employees in each of the various branches of the Railway Service.²⁷

Public railway travel was introduced to NSW in 1855, the year after the first Victorian railway was opened. Although also beginning as a privately-funded venture, the colonial government soon realised that the funds needed to construct track over long distances to serve a small population could only be generated by a government-run enterprise.²⁸

In both Queensland and Tasmania, the construction of railways also began as a private enterprise. Planning began in Queensland in 1860, but within three years, the colonial government had changed its opinion about the efficacy of this arrangement and decided to fund a programme of railway construction. Several factors contributed to this change of heart, including the insolvency of the private company tasked with the job, and the government’s much greater capacity to source loans in Britain. The first line was laid from Ipswich westwards towards Toowoomba in 1864 and the British-built engines and rolling stock arrived with British engineers to assemble them. Despite considerable opposition, the government decided upon a 3-foot 6-inch rail gauge, which had never been used on main lines. Tasmania also adopted 3-foot 6-inch gauge lines, constructing the first main line in 1873, despite a 5-foot 3-inch gauge line having already been laid between Deloraine and Launceston in 1871. Western Australia would also adopt the narrow gauge.²⁹

The Queensland Locomotive Enginemen Firemen & Cleaners’Association formed in 1891. In 1900, it federated with Associations from Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia to form the Federated Railway Locomotive Enginemen’s Association of Australasia. A South Australian union had finally formed in 1886 after two previous attempts in 1876 and 1880 had failed due to conflict between drivers and firemen. In 1921, a year after the High Court ruled that unions covering employees in state instrumentalities could have access to the Federal Arbitration Court, the Federated Association established the Australian Federated Union of Locomotive Enginemen [AFULE].³⁰

British Influence in New South Wales

According to railway historian Peter O’Connor, the first Australian locomotive drivers were almost entirely from Britain.³¹ An example was Robert Hollis, who was born in 1851 in Derbyshire. At 13, he went to work in the Midland Railway Company, reaching the grade of engine driver in 1878, at the age of 27. He was an active member of the ASRS, serving on the union executive in 1877-8, but he was disappointed by the union’s conservatism. While other railway men sought a solution in forming ASLEF in Sheffield in 1880, Hollis instead decided to emigrate. In 1884 he and his wife, Alice, arrived in NSW, where Hollis joined the Railway Department and soon became general secretary of the NSW Locomotive Engine Drivers’, Firemen’s and Cleaners’Association (founded 1883). Hollis’ experiences in England convinced him of the value of a union dedicated to drivers, firemen and cleaners, and he opposed attempts by another English immigrant, William Schey, to organize railway workers into one general union.³² The union that Schey formed in 1886, the Amalgamated Railway and Tramway Service Association [ARTSA] was modelled on the ASRS.³³ Thus Hollis and Schey both had a significant influence on the development of railway workers’ unions in NSW.

Other influential British railwaymen included ‘English-trained’ William Sixsmith, who was famed for driving the first locomotive from Sydney to Parramatta in 1855, and Scots drivers John Heron,³⁴ who had worked on the Glasgow and South Western Railway, and George McKenzie, who had come to NSW via South Africa. It was quite common for these British drivers to have worked elsewhere in the Empire, and sometimes also in the United States, before arriving in Australia. They brought with them customs regarded as ‘British’ as emblems of their status. Men who entered the railways service in the 1960s could recall working with engine drivers who still wore the suit and tie.³⁵

British influence in Western Australia

How many British footplate unionists immigrated to Western Australia is unknown. Elsewhere, it has been shown that British workers were significantly represented in the workforce at the Midland Government Railway Workshops at Perth, and that they brought with them British ideas, including class-consciousness, the closed shop and deference towards superiors.³⁶ There are indications that significant numbers of British railway workers may have come to Western Australia in the late 1890s and early 1900s. ASLEF encouraged some of its members to emigrate, especially after the 1887 strike, mentioned above, when many Midland Railway Company employees were blacklisted by employers, and their service records were inscribed, Not to be used in the United Kingdom. Emigration was the only viable option for those who wished to continue working in their trade. Members were able to apply for an emigration grant of five or ten pounds, and for several years, the names of those who received grants were recorded in the union’s annual balance sheet. In 1887, the year of the Midland strike, the union assisted 56 members to emigrate. Regrettably, destinations were not recorded. In most years, the numbers assisted were very small.³⁷ Some of these men are likely to have immigrated to Western Australia, either directly from Britain or via the eastern Australian colonies.

The first government railway in Western Australia opened in 1879; it ran between Geraldton and Northampton, a distance of 55 kilometres. The Fremantle to Guildford line, which passed through Perth, opened in 1881, and the government-owned railway workshops began operations at Fremantle in the same year, with extensions opened in 1885, 1887 and 1896. By the turn of the century, however, these workshops were completely inadequate to cope with a railway system that had increased ten-fold between 1885 and 1900, and new workshops were opened at Midland, east of the capital, in 1904.³⁸

In 1885, the first footplate union in Western Australia, the Locomotive Engine Drivers and Firemen’s Union, formed, according to historian Ian vanden Driesen, from drivers and firemen who were imported from elsewhere, as the colony lacked men with those skills. While not specifying that these men came from Britain, vanden Driesen stated that many of the new employees turned out to be union men, and they were quick to establish a Locomotive Engine Drivers and Firemen’s Union,³⁹ but the source of his information is unclear. William Somerville, the most contemporary of the historical accounts, merely mentions the arrival of trade union pioneers with the coming of the railway.⁴⁰

There is, however, some evidence of organisation. Although Perth’s major newspaper, the West Australian, appears to have avoided reporting industrial matters, the paper published public opinion in its Letters to the Editor section, in which unionists communicated their activities prior to the establishment of the labour movement newspaper, the Westralian Worker, in 1900. In February 1886, a correspondent using the pen name The Herald advised that, in the previous August, a group of railwaymen referred to as the engine drivers and firemen of the Eastern Railways had sent a list of grievances to the General Manager of the Railways. Apart from the Department having proposed a wage cut of five pence per hour – resulting in an hourly wage of 10 pence compared with the 1881 rate of 15 pence – the men enumerated other grievances; drivers were required to work 12½ hours for 10½ hours pay or 17¼ hours for 14 hours pay, and on Sunday duty, they claimed that they were paid only 11¼ hours pay for 16¾ hours work. The men complained that one of them had been unfairly dismissed and another was told he had to work the hours at the pay he was offered, or leave. They also were required to work in all weathers and they had to supply their own overcoats ⁴¹ The General Manager refused to listen and told the men that if they did not like their conditions of service, they could leave. On 6 February1886, a large number of drivers handed in their resignations. The Commissioner, who knew that the men could not easily be replaced, intervened, met a deputation of the men, and granted their claims some months later.⁴²

Despite this success at negotiating, however, the first engine drivers’ and firemen’s union appears to have had a brief existence; there was no locomotive engine drivers’ association among the five unions that constituted Perth’s first Trades and Labor Council in 1891.⁴³ In his thesis on the early Western Australian labour movement, H.J. Gibbney stated that by the end of 1890, the trade union movement had really gained a footing in West Australia, with six true trade unions and two coordinating bodies, the Eight Hour Associations having been founded, although not more than five of these bodies were surviving in 1891.⁴⁴ The original Locomotive Drivers’ Union appears to have been one that became defunct, somewhat surprisingly after their confident start. As mentioned earlier, Somerville stated that in 1893 the railway workers did not have a union.

Foundation of the WALEDF&CU

The West Australian Locomotive Engine Drivers’ Firemen’s and Cleaners’ Union [WALEDF&CU], dated its commencement from 1898.⁴⁵ According to Somerville, the union’s founder was Thomas Cartwright, a man whom he described as an obese, ugly figure [who] waddled as he walked but he had a keen, combative brain, was a fluent and forceful speaker, a trained engineman and a tireless organiser.⁴⁶ In April the following year, a non-footplate employees’ union, the Western Australian Government Railways [WAGR] Association was formed. This subsequently became the WA Amalgamated Society of Rail Employees [WAASRE]. Gibbney observed:

By 1899, the expansion of the State Railways had enormously increased the size of these two Unions. The story of Labor on the coast during the next five years is completely dominated by the struggles between these two unions and the State Government.⁴⁷

As will be seen in subsequent chapters, the railway unions also struggled against each other.

Prior to the Trades Union Regulation Act being passed in the State Parliament on 19 February 1902, the WALEDF&CU, like all WA trade unions, was denied legal status under the existing legislation.⁴⁸ As shown by Somerville, being a union member could expose a worker to intimidation or even sacking. The union’s early years were similarly turbulent to those of ASLEF in Britain; it succeeded in forcing Frederick Piesse, the hostile Commissioner for Railways, to resign. During the early part of 1899, Thomas Cartwright wrote several times to Piesse, unsuccessfully requesting recognition for the union. After the Commissioner stated categorically that he would not recognise the union, the WALEDF&CU organised a deputation of John Higham, the Legislative Assembly Member for Fremantle, and D.K. Condon, H. Briggs and A.B. Kidson, representing the West Province in the Legislative Council, to intercede on their behalf. None of these men represented Labor interests, yet they were more sympathetic to the union than Piesse and John Davies, the General Manager of the Railways, both of whom regarded unionists as agitators who were making Crown servants discontented.⁴⁹ According to Somerville, the efforts of the parliamentarians, together with the fact that the Fremantle Lumpers (waterside workers) were on strike and the existence of a rumour that the Engineers might also strike, served to unbend the Commissioner. Although still refusing to recognise the union, he did agree to meet a deputation. After this, the union appears to have received ‘unofficial’ recognition.⁵⁰

In October 1899, the union sent a deputation to the Locomotive Engineer, R.B. Campbell who – unlike his superiors Piesse and Davies – was well respected by railway men, because he recognised the union’s right to represent its members. By New Year, 1900, the footplate men’s grievances remained unresolved, but negotiations between Cartwright and Campbell had almost been satisfactorily concluded, when Davies sacked Campbell over a departmental matter. The WALEDF&CU demanded Campbell’s reinstatement; when a deputation to Piesse failed to achieve its object, the unionists ceased work on 10 January. ⁵¹

The strike came at a very bad time for the colonial government, which was in the midst of deciding whether WA should federate with the rest of Australia in 1901. The Goldfields, which favoured federation, was threatening to break away from the rest of the colony and take with it riches of the ‘Golden Mile’. The Premier, John Forrest, intervened to end the enginemen’s strike. On 11 January, a joint conference succeeded in coming to an agreement that the unionists would return to work while their grievances were being investigated; despite Campbell not being reinstated, Piesse was forced to resign. While this settlement could be said to be a victory for the General Manager, Davies nevertheless persisted in attacking the union through the press. On 2 April, official recognition of the union was withdrawn – a step apparently justified by the fact that the NSW Commissioner for Railways had recently taken similar action against the locomotive men’s union there – and was withheld until August,