Neale Towart

HERITAGE REPORT

The Old with the New: Refurbishing the Sydney Trades Hall and Reclaiming Union History

The Sydney Trades Hall is located at 4 Goulburn Street, Sydney at the northern end of the 'Chinatown District'. It was built in 1888 by the Trades Hall Association, the original trade union affiliates responsible for its construction. In 2002 it was sold to the Labor Council of New South Wales (now Unions NSW) which is refurbishing and restoring the historic building with the approval of the Heritage Council of New South Wales.

The Sydney Trades Hall, c 1887

Artist: John Smedley, the winner of the design competition held in 1887
Photo courtesy Unions NSW

Sydney Trades Hall has recently been through the sixth stage of its construction, 90 years after the completion of stage five. The early twenty-first century stage required the demolition of some of the early twentieth century work, creating a large open air space that has already become a great venue for functions such as conference breakouts, book launches, exhibitions, and a media centre, and so on. Unions NSW wants the buzz back in the Trades Hall, just as it wants the buzz back into unions, and the revitalization of the building is essential for that buzz.

The reopening of the Sydney Trades Hall Building, May Day 2007 with NSW Governor, Marie Bashir presiding. The building's foundation stone had been laid by Lord Carrington, Governor of NSW in 1888.

Photo courtesy Unions NSW

So how did Unions NSW go about refurbishing a building that is on the State Heritage Register, a refurbishment that involved destruction of part of that heritage? It has been a process long in gestation. In the 1960s the Labor Council of NSW (as Unions NSW was then), sought to get the Trades Hall Association (Labor Council was a shareholder but not a majority one) to agree to the demolition of the entire building to enable a large scale redevelopment. The Association said no and the Labor Council confined itself to the building at 377–383 Sussex Street, adjoining the Trades Hall. The Hall did not survive unscathed however. A connection corridor was included that demolished the banner room of the Hall.

Here I should emphasise the key difference between Sydney and Melbourne Trades Hall.¹ Apart from the difference in scale (Melbourne Trades Hall being a much grander building), the Sydney Trades Hall was never run by the peak body of the union movement in the state. The Victorian Trades Hall Council had that role and controlled the Hall as well. The Labor Council of NSW was a tenant and shareholder, not a controlling owner. In 1970 this was a good thing for the Trades Hall building.

The demolition of the banner room was the catalyst for the restoration of the banners. The saviour of these nationally significant objects was Lorna Morrison. Lorna McDonald had begun work at the Trades Hall in the 1940s in the office of the Trades Hall and Literary Institute. This is room 29A and the library and beautifully crafted shelves are still in place. Lorna is no longer in the office. Her sister Elaine was actually on site before Lorna, having started as a typist during World War II when Richard Worrall was the secretary of the Association. At that time, women were unable to continue working after marriage and children which meant that Elaine had to resign (despite Worrall urging her to stay). Lorna was practically drafted into the job by her father and her strong trade union convictions and she remained until 1957, when again marriage and family diverted her. Lorna returned in 1970 at the request of the then Trades Hall Association secretary, George Hunt. George passed away in 1971 and Les Druce stepped in, only to have to resign due to illness in 1974. Lorna then became the first ever female secretary of the Association and remained in the role until 2003. Elaine was also a fixture in room 29A throughout this time.²

Lorna Morrison in the room named after her at the reopening of the Sydney Trades Hall, May Day 2007

Photo courtesy Unions NSW

Letters were sent to all unions who stored their banners at the Hall, letting them know what was being planned and asking them to collect their banners. Many did nothing and Lorna took it upon herself to ensure those banners were not destroyed as happens to so much archival material when an office is moved or renovated. Her eventual success in getting banners restored and storage systems built is another story.

Over the next 20 or so years various schemes appeared and costings were done on restoration of the building and demolition of the building. Several of the plans sought to demolish the central core of the building, leaving a façade, and have an office tower rising from the centre. Possible uses included accommodation for students at the University of Technology and a campus space for the Australian School of Music.

Unions NSW remained enthusiastic about refurbishing the existing building throughout this time, but the costs were great (upwards of $10 million for electrical work alone) so the Trades Hall Association soldiered on renting out the quirky office spaces to unions, lawyers and lots of non-government organisations such as the Non-Smokers Movement, Bicycle NSW, the Union of Australian Women, and the trade union overseas aid body, Australian People for Health, Education and Development Abroad (APHEDA).

The completion of the project was enabled by the sale of the Labor Council radio station 2KY in 2001. This station had its beginnings in the tower room of the Trades Hall in 1925. Emil Voigt mortgaged his own house to procure the class B broadcasting license for the Postmaster General, seeing radio as a crucial medium to communicate and propagandise the union point of view. He had the initial reluctant backing of the Labor Council but support from Jock Garden at the time saw Voigt be a part of the Trades Hall Reds. The murky politics of Labor and labour in New South Wales in the 1920s and 1930s eventually saw him lose his position and much of the credit for his vision was taken by others. Voigt's role in radio development in Australia has been largely unsung but his granddaughter Robyn has been uncovering and making it known in recent years. Among his other achievements was an Olympic Gold Medal in 1908. Robin Voigt's diligence on behalf of her grandfather also enabled her to unearth the switch used by Jack Lang to switch on the 2KY service when it moved to premises in French's Forest in the 1930s. It was in the possession of the engineer of the station at the time, Mr Beard and will soon be on display in the Hall.

That radio station is now known for its racing coverage rather than for its trade union education role. Labor Council decided to dedicate the proceeds of the sale to the restoration of Trades Hall. The initial hurdle to that was the purchase of all the shares that the Trades Hall and Literary Institute Association had issued in those early days. These shares were a public issue as investors were assured that it would be a great return on their funds. Well the investors had to wait from 1890 until 2002 but someone got their money back in the end. The prospectus is now on display in the Institute Library and office (Room 29). Many shares were bought by trade unions and some by individual trade unionists. Labor Council had to determine who those shareholders were. They had the list and share certificates but many of the unions had either become part of larger unions or had disappeared without trace. Tracing their lineage was part of the puzzle. Current unions were the inheritors of many shares from organisations such as the Felt Hatters, Dairy and Ice Carters, Pastoralists, Hairdressers and Wigmakers, Wicker Workers, Pressers Society and their shares were purchased after much negotiation about price!

The Project Begins

By 2003 the Labor Council had become the sole shareholder. GSA Architects were selected to design the refurbishment and Multiplex Constructions were chosen as the builders. As it is a heritage listed building, the NSW Heritage Act was the guide for work and the Heritage Council had to approve all processes. Sydney City Council also had an interest. Part of the heritage requirements was the need for Multiplex, as the builder, to employ an approved Heritage Architect to oversee the work. Otto Cserhalmi and Partners who had worked with Multiplex on the Jones Bay Wharf project were appointed.

The original conception of the hall was as a Trades Hall; the prime movers were members of the craft unions which had their origins in the friendly societies of the earlier eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Accordingly the design of the Sydney building recalled the large lodge rooms of this earlier era. By the time of completion of stage five, demand for space from the rapid growth of general unions following Federation in 1901 had meant a great deal of subdivision of office spaces with partitioning This partitioning had itself become of heritage significance by 2004.

Amalgamated Tanners Banner

One of the 35 large banners rescued by Lorna Morrison after the demolition of the original banner room (1970). Some have been painstakingly restored; others like this one are able to be hung, but still await full conservation and restoration.

Photo courtesy Unions NSW

The task of a Unions NSW officer and his trusty associate was to go through the building before demolition and refurbishment could really swing into action and retrieve anything portable of historical significance. As noted there were heritage architects but they had absolutely no understanding of what was of trade union historical significance. They spent a lot of time photographing various architectural features, and knew about the five stages of construction, the different bricks and sandstone used, all about wall dados and other things but, in a classic example of the different 'ways of seeing', they were largely blind to directories of tenants painted on the walls, the importance of wear and tear on Australian cedar banister rails where the hands of past Prime Ministers, Premiers, Australian Council of Trade Union (ACTU) leaders and many very important figures in the Australian trade union movement had passed, had heard voices raised, witnessed deals done, fights break out. The significance of a union office's location in relation to a union of a different political persuasion was not at the front of their minds in assessing heritage significance. This is not a criticism of the architects, but of the heritage building processes in general. The builder employs the heritage people, whose track records are known to the State Heritage Council, but their criteria for 'heritage' is all about building features, when a building is nothing unless it is peopled and lived and worked in. A trades hall, particularly one so well documented as the Sydney Trades Hall, is a living space and its contents are a part of the building, portable, ephemeral or ethereal, and the heritage renovation processes do not allow for that.

The heritage processes also do not fully take into account the future use of the building. Trades Hall has always been a working office space, and will continue as such. Its refurbishment must allow for commercial uses, but also retain heritage. A look around the Sydney Central Business District indicates the difficulty owners have in retaining heritage criteria whilst trying to pay the rates, unless they have very deep pockets. State and federal governments have passed legislation on heritage buildings, largely because of trade union initiatives in the 1960s and 1970s, but as with so many things, have avoided a monetary commitment themselves. Unions NSW has borne all costs of refurbishment, but have not received any funding for capital works for a building that has to be restored as part of our public heritage.

That aside, the salvage of items was fun for us. Finding rooms never before seen and which have now disappeared was a great journey. The basement turned out to be of three levels; it appears that the old coal cellars have had mezzanine floors added presumably to allow for extra storage.

In various little booths underneath the pub we found glasses used for forgotten anniversary celebrations carefully tucked away by Lorna Morrison and Elaine Morey, boxes of unfortunately heavily water damaged copies of Jim Hagan's Printers and Politics, plus various hand made and drawn posters and banners of printers union disputes, chiefly from the 1970s, against the Fairfax papers, and against Murdoch papers' anti-Whitlam stance. Delving further underneath the floor, with leg rope attached in case of attack by the long forgotten 'beast of Trades Hall', we pulled out termite-eaten minutes of meetings from the 1890s, some recoverable, some not.

Banners were restored for exhibition in the 1980s and they were displayed by the Powerhouse Museum. Other items included in this exhibition had been rediscovered in these little rooms: draught horse regalia with 888 sewn on to the blankets, suits of armour from the tinsmiths, numbered round flat tin signs used to designate the order of procession for the Eight-Hour day parades, model tools of various trades including patterned kangaroos from the pattern makers and iron moulders' hammers. Many of these items are now on permanent display in the Lorna Morrison Exhibition Room (tours by arrangement) and in the ground floor heritage interpretation space.

Much excitement was generated by the discovery of two walk-in safes in the basement. One was on the Goulburn Street side, heading under the footpath, the other in the open air and light well which also had the water drain. There was a feeling that gold might be found, or at least bodies uncovered. Sadly one safe had a bit of loose change and bits of tin, whilst the other had bags and bags of ballot papers from union elections held during the 1960s and early 1970s. Most interesting were Builders Labourers Federation (BLF) ballots from the time Jack Mundey and his team first challenged the old BLF leadership. Another reminder of this turbulent era was the collection of ballot papers revealing the infamous name of Tom Domican, challenging Bob Pringle.

Saving items is one thing, but there is not much use having them if they have to be stored in boxes to be briefly glimpsed by historians from time to time. The Secretary of Unions NSW and the Trades Hall Association, John Robertson, remains an enthusiastic advocate for getting the stuff out there for people to see – not only to remind people of the unions themselves, but to keep in peoples' (the public and union members) minds the impact that trade union campaigns have had on the structures of society. Pamphlets, banners, posters collected over a long period of time are the best illustrations we have of the issues unions have campaigned on throughout their history, not just in the period of broader 'new Left' ideals.

One other impact of the refurbishment and display of union memorabilia has been the donation of items to the Trades Hall by unionists and family members of former officials and members. Badges, photographs, posters and presentation certificates have been added to the collections. One of the remarkable collections came from the Gas Employees Union. It includes a series of photographs of the federal executive from the 1920s, and a photograph of union members and their families, with huge union banner in the background, at the first gasworks in the Sydney area (at Mortlake from the 1880s) – a treasure.

The uses the building is to have are various. A pub and restaurants will occupy much of the ground floor on Goulburn and Dixon Streets. Unions NSW and the ACTU are the sole users of the third floor, and several other tenants are in residence elsewhere. No other unions have moved back in as yet.

The concept of the building as a public space and commercial building is an aspect the landlord has to deal with. The new atrium area, which was created by the demolition of one section of the building to have a large light-filled public area has been well used for meetings, functions and has permanent facilities for exhibitions. The auditorium, originally built as the last stage of the 'old' building (completed 1917) has been revamped and reoriented. The seating is now tiered and is flexible so the floor area can become an open space but the room can also be used for films, meetings, seminars etc, with plenty of scope for breakouts and smaller group meetings in other areas such as the training rooms adjacent in the Unions NSW building, and meeting rooms on the third floor. The pub and restaurant will enable simplicity in catering for functions, conferences. The Trades Hall and Literary Institute Library room is also ideally suited to small seminars, providing a great atmosphere.

There are many unionists who have stories to tell about the building and their activities there. We hope to collect such stories.

Unions NSW has produced a lavishly illustrated brochure about the building, and Kylie Hilton has written a book on the building's history (also beautifully illustrated). These are available free of charge from Unions NSW reception or contact the author. Conference organisers should also rejoice that the Trades Hall Auditorium and various meeting rooms are available and make an excellent venue, with the atrium area a great reception hall.

Neale Towart is Unions NSW Librarian and Sydney Trades Hall Association Heritage Officer. As a librarian, he likes finding things out and as a heritage officer, he likes finding old stuff and making it relevant to today and tomorrow.
<n.towart@unionsnsw.org.au>

Endnotes

^1.� Cathy Brigden, 'Creating labour's space: the case of the Melbourne Trades Hall'. Labour History, no. 89, Nov, 2005, pp. 125–140.

^2.� Some reminisces can be found at <http://workers.labor.net.au/87/c_historicalfeature_lorna.html> and <http://workers.labor.net.au/features/200303/c_historicalfeature_banner.html>.

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