Tom McDonald

OBITUARYS

Ron Hancock (16.08.1910 – 30.05.2003)

Ron Hancock — militant union leader, socialist, peace activist and champion of aboriginal rights — died earlier this year, and the following piece is based on his oral reflections.	1
Ron Hancock was the Assistant National Secretary of the Building Workers Industrial Union (BWIU) (Carpenters & Bricklayers), now part of the CFMEU, between 1945 and 1971 less the few years he was an organiser of the Union's Victorian Branch.	2
Ron was born in 1910 and migrated with his parents from Yorkshire in 1911, settling in Coburg, Victoria, where he was raised. His first adverse encounter with an employer happened during his apprenticeship as a carpenter and joiner. He refused to do grinding work on the huge bronze entrance doors of a new bank because of the dust hazard. The employer threatened to cancel his apprenticeship, but Ron stood firm and won, and management was forced to erect a special booth to control the dust.	3
Ron's early experiences with the Union were very negative. He spoke of the days when the Union's conservative organiser spent his time in the manager's office and not with the workers, and of how the Union leadership did nothing when workers were not paid for Christmas, Boxing Day and New Years Day. But Ron was not deterred: he and four others went about totally unionising the large establishment, RMS Joiners, into an organised workplace; he was subsequently elected job delegate. Later, with the help of others, they reformed the leadership of the Union into a fighting, militant body. One of these four, Joe Chandler, went on to become the Secretary of the Victorian State Branch of the Union. Soon after, Ron became the Brunswick Secretary, a member of the State Management Committee, and later a Victorian Branch Organiser. Ron and his mates all joined the Left Book Club and started to become very politically conscious.	4
During the early war years Ron was conscripted into the Civil Construction Core (CCC) and was sent to the Northern Territory to work on urgent defence projects. With a handful of others Ron proceeded to unionise the many war-time projects that were under construction there. They organised what they called a Central Committee, with representatives from the various sites, to coordinate action in the Northern Territory. The authorities inadvertently helped this process when, in order to get rid of them, they transferred Ron and several militant workmates from the wool store construction site at Tottenham, in Victoria, to the Northern Territory.	5
The problems for the CCC started when they failed to honour an agreement for Ron and his 80 or so construction workers to receive a tobacco ration of two ounces per week. The workers' response was: no tobacco, no travel. The next problem was the refusal of the CCC to allow them to buy beer at one of the rail stops. Again the workers' response was: no beer, no travel. A compromise was reached, that they could drink whatever they liked in the pub, but that they couldn't bring beer on the train.	6
While the construction workers in the Northern Territory supported the trade union movement's commitment to an all-out effort against fascism and Japanese militarism, they still demanded that they be given a fair go as workers. As time went by, several more disputes developed in the Northern Territory, one of which was over the Union's demand that trenches be dug near the site to protect workers from Japanese air raids, since wharfies and other workers and civilians had been killed in the attacks on Darwin.	7
Ron and his colleagues successfully campaigned for a Northern Territory construction award. During this campaign an Australian Workers Union organiser from down south attended a camp meeting on Ron's site of 350 men. At the meeting he launched into an anti-Communist tirade against the Camp Committee and the Central Committee during which the workers, as Ron said, were very quiet. When he had finished, a resolution was proposed by one of the workers, and carried unanimously, 'That he be given 30 minutes to leave the camp and if he's still here in the morning he'll be thrown out on his arse'. The organiser was not to be found the next morning.	8
The area committee built up good relationships with the soldiers and the airmen through organised social and sporting activities. As a result of this, the Central Committee was able to establish a communication and travel system between all sites, despite the CCC restrictions.	9
The biggest strike lasted ten days and involved all sites from Birdum to Darwin, where there were several sites. It was triggered when the CCC refused to allow two seriously ill workers to return home for urgent medical treatment and both workers died. During the strike the army was brought in to do the work and when this happened, truck keys began going missing, many trucks broke down and others had accidents. Ron recalled that the Camp Committees were concerned at the damage being done, and so sent their own mechanics to show how equipment could be immobilised without being damaged. The strike required the intervention of the Prime Minister to settle the dispute according to the terms required by the workers.	10
During Ron's term as the BWIU Assistant National Secretary, and following the commencement of the 'McCarthy Cold War' era, a number of efforts were made to destroy the Union, all to no avail. There was the deregistration of the Union in 1949, the establishment of a break-away union by the ultra-conservative National Civic Council (NCC), which was supported by the employers. Those same forces set up a break-away party called the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), which gave its preferences in elections to Robert Menzies' Liberal Party. These preferences were to keep the Liberals in power for almost two decades.	11
According to Ron, the Royal Commission into the Communist Party and its influence in the trade unions, which targeted (amongst others) the BWIU, found nothing to discredit it. However, when the Commission froze the funds of some unions it was decided to shift the Federal Office of the BWIU to NSW, so that its funds were outside the Commission's jurisdiction. Virtually overnight, Ron and his wife, Freda, and the family had to pack up and leave all their union and family friends behind for the sake of the union.	12
Soon after his arrival in Sydney, Ron met the Reverend Alf Clint, who, together with a committee of church, union and Aboriginal representatives, was given a property at Glebe by the Church of England. Together they converted it into the Tranby Aboriginal Co-operative College. It was Ron Hancock who moved this BWIU resolution (which was carried unanimously) at an Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress: The Congress declares that it is the natural right of the Aboriginal people to enjoy a social and legal equality with other Australians É the Aboriginal people, while forming part of the Australian population, are at the same time distinct, viable national minorities entitled to special facilities for self development. The resolution was drawn up in consultation with Aboriginal leaders and had earlier been endorsed at an Easter conference attended by such people as Don Dunstan, the onetime Premier of South Australia. At the time Ron pointed out that: Aboriginals were not allowed to vote, their movements were restricted, they could not own property, they were paid less than award rates, they were not free to marry as they wished and they did not have full legal rights in some states. Along with his involvement in the fight for Aboriginal rights, Ron was also very active in the peace and socialist movements.	13
Ron lived a tough life. He was unemployed during the Great Depression and was forced to try his hand as a tobacco farmer; but because of frosts and fungus disease he spent 'the hardest three years of his life'. During this time he earned, after paying his bills, just £7 0s. 3d. Ron, who loved music, played the banjo and was a member of a bush band which practiced in the backblocks of Coburg, where, Ron said, 'we scared hell out of the wild life'.	14
Ron lived by and was loyal to his working-class and socialist principles until the day he died. He was a dedicated family man and is survived by his three children, Barbara, Bob and Collin, and a number of grandchildren.	15

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