Keith Harvey | John Peter Maynes, 1923 - 2009 | Labour History, 97

OBITUARY

John Peter Maynes, 1923 - 2009

Keith Harvey^*

John Maynes (15.03.1923 - 15.04.2009), who has died at the age of 86, was a central figure in the anti-communist Right of the labour movement for most of the second half of the twentieth century in Australia. Maynes rose to prominence in the 1940s when a number of Australian Labor Party (ALP) state branches established Industrial Groups to fight communist influence in the union movement.

Maynes: The Public Figure

An Industrial Group was established in the Victorian Branch of the Federated Clerks Union of Australia (FCU) in September 1946. John Maynes was the Group's first President¹ and remained a key organiser and 'numbers man' for the anti-communist Right in the labour movement until 1992 when he retired.

John Maynes
FCU National Executive meeting, Port Macquarie, 1985
Photo courtesy ASU

In 1950 a Victorian Branch ballot, where the returning officer burnt the ballot papers rather than declare the result, allowed the Groups to seek the first ever court- controlled ballot for office bearers in a union.² John Maynes was elected Branch Vice-President and as a delegate to the crucial National Conference then underway in Nowra, New South Wales. John Maynes traveled to Nowra by train but was not allowed to take his place as a delegate. The Industrial Groups eventually won control of the FCU in 1952 and, in 1954, John Maynes became Federal President of the FCU.

After the split in the Labor Party, Maynes and supporters in Victoria found themselves outside the ALP, many of them joining the Democratic Labor Party (DLP). Maynes emerged as a key figure in B.A. Santamaria's National Civic Council (NCC), becoming responsible for its work in trade union movement.³

Under the leadership of Maynes and Federal Secretary, Joe Riordan, FCU membership grew rapidly by obtaining preference clauses favoring union members and membership agreements. In 1974, the FCU's membership peaked at nearly 110,000, becoming the largest white collar union in Australia.

During his tenure, four themes driven by John Maynes dominated the FCU's policy work: technological change, equal pay for women workers, family income assistance and international unionism. As a practical measure to deal with the consequences of technological change, the FCU successfully pressed industrial tribunals to give employees rights to notification and consultation about new technology from the time that its introduction was being contemplated. As an organisation primarily consisting of women workers, the Clerks Union had always supported and pursued equal pay for women workers. John Maynes continued this work.

In the 1980s, during the Hawke Government, the FCU (with the Shop Assistants Union) was influential in building the political pressure which led to the Hawke/Keating Government substantially increasing family income assistance. The Cold War was fought out in the union movement in Australia and overseas, both in national unions and international union federations. John affiliated the FCU with the international white collar union federation, then known as FIET, becoming a World Executive member, and Maynes its Asia/Pacific President.

Maynes was active in speaking out about the activities of what were then called 'multi-national corporations' (a policy concern he shared with the Left) and their ability to drive down wages and conditions by taking production to the lowest cost countries with limited trade union organisation.

In the late 1970s, a split developed in the ranks of full-time NCC officials with B. A. Santamaria on one side and industrial activists and others led by John Maynes on the other.⁴ The two sides tried a trial separation but despite concessions by the Maynes group, the episode ended late in 1982 with expulsions, sackings, resignations and court cases. Nearly all the industrial activists formed a new organisation, later known as Social Action, in which John Maynes was initially a key figure. On the other hand, one split was healed. Following a request from Prime Minister Bob Hawke and his allies, Maynes actively supported the re-affiliation of four anti-communist Victorian unions with the ALP.

John Maynes was elected as a member of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) Executive in 1981. From the early 1980s, however, things had begun to go wrong for him in the FCU. He lost control of the large Central and Southern Queensland Branch in 1982. In mid-1988, a Reform Group ticket led by Lindsay Tanner won full control of the Victorian Branch. John Maynes did not stand for Branch President in the 1988 ballot but remained National President, partly courtesy of the Union's collegiate system of elections. Between 1988 and 1991, the factional wars continued. Maynes still controlled the national body. A 1991 truce provided that neither side would contest positions held by the other in Branches and that the Right would remain in control nationally. The new national leadership of the FCU, elected in 1992 after the 1991 branch elections, did not include John Maynes – for the first time since 1950.

Maynes as a Leader: A Personal View

It is not hard to imagine that John Maynes would have been disappointed with the ultimate outcome of his years of work in the FCU. He had dramatically won the Victorian Branch from the pro-communist Left in 1950 and lost it to the Socialist Left of the ALP in 1988. The FCU under Maynes took industrial, social and political policy seriously. In the days when the ACTU Congress debated policy for a week at its biennial congresses, John Maynes was always in the thick of it.

At John Maynes's funeral, his son Kevin spoke of his father's entrepreneurial spirit and enterprise as a young person.⁵ How then, did he come to spend his life working in the union movement, hardly a place for entrepreneurs?

As a young catholic activist, John Maynes saw a need to be a part of the struggle for the future of the labour movement and, like many others, put aside other interests and career possibilities to do this work. Although he was often criticised by his political opponents within the Union for the amount of time he spent overseas, he was a genuine internationalist and encouraged others to participate in international exchanges in order to understand other countries and cultures. As FCU Federal President, Maynes dominated the FCU by force of personality, knowledge and position. He found it difficult to praise but he was also capable of kindness, generosity and loyalty.

John Maynes had his imperfections. However, unlike so many others he met along the way, he fully stayed the course of his life's work, always remaining committed to the values, principles and objectives with which he had begun.

Keith Harvey is employed as a National Industrial Officer by the Australian Services Union. He was employed by the National Office of the Federated Clerks Union from August 1979 until it amalgamated with two other unions to form the Australian Services Union in 1993. Keith worked closely with John Maynes at the FCU both in Keith's capacity as an employee of the Union, and between 1982 until 1988 as an elected member of the Executive of the Victorian Branch of the FCU during which time John Maynes was Branch President.
<Kharvey@asu.asn.au>

Endnotes

^*� This article is an abridged version of a longer one published in two parts in the Melbourne Branch of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History publication, Recorder, 'J.P.M.' – John Peter Maynes (Part 1), Keith Harvey, Recorder, no. 262, June 2009, pp. 3–5 and 'J.P.M.' – John Peter Maynes (Part 2), Keith Harvey, Recorder, no. 263, October 2009, pp. 3–5.

^1.� G.F. Walsh, The Federated Clerks Union of Australia: A Study of Government and Unionism in the 20^th Century, unpublished PhD thesis, Monash University, 1984, p. 172. Murray, however, says Maynes was Secretary of the Clerks Industrial Group: R. Murray, The Split: Australian Labor in the Fifties, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1950, p. 19.

^2.� Walsh, The Federated Clerks Union of Australia, p.183.

^3.� P. Morgan (ed.), B.A. Santamaria: Running the Show: Selected documents, 1939–1996, The Miegunyah Press in association with the State Library of Victoria, Carlton, Vic., 2008, p. 311

^4.� See Morgan, B.A. Santamaria, pp. 377 ff.

^5.� Eulogy delivered by Kevin Maynes, 21^st April 2009. Copy in the possession of the author.