Oral history interviews with ACT union officials available online

Interviews conducted by the Canberra Region Branch of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History are now online.

Ted Forbes, Peter O’Dea and Doug Carpenter, former Presidents of the Trades and Labour Council and Charles McDonald and Jeremy Pyner, Secretaries of the Council, are among those who talk about their involvement in the union movement and issues such as enterprise bargaining and the creation of super unions.

The interviews were recorded in 1997-98 on cassette tape and have now been digitised as MP3 files accessible on the ANU Open research repository. Transcripts are also available.

Interviewees include:

• Doug Carpenter (Transport Workers’ Union)
• Amos McVeigh (Federated Liquor and Allied Industries Union)
• Bill Spellman (Australian Workers’ Union)
• Charles McDonald (Trades and Labour Council)
• Athol Williams (Shop Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association)
• Dave Cunningham (Building Workers’ Industrial Union)
• Peter O’Dea (Builders’ Labourers’ Federation)
• Ted Forbes (Federated Miscellaneous Workers’ Union)
• Des Heaney (Association of Draughting, Supervisory and Technical Employees and Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union)
• Gil Anderson (Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers’ Union)
• Jeremy Pyner (Building Workers’ Industrial Union/Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union)
• George Wason (Building Workers’ Industrial Union/Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union)
• Rob Hampstead (Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance) and
• Bob O’Hara (Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union).