Chapter 6: - Rail, Tram and Bus Union of NSW

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*On Wooden Rails Chapter 6 8/30/05 8:50 PM Page 212 On Wooden Rails - Celebrating 150 Years of Work on the NSW Railways “Apart from the usual array of waitresses, counter-girls and usefuls, the Sydney dining rooms were managed by chefs who supervised a team of grill, fish, vegetable, sweets and pastry cooks. Butchers, piemakers, tobacconists, cordial makers were also employed onsite, as were a large complement of kitchen, scullery, pantry, cleaning and boiler-room staff……[from the early 1920s] two musicians were also on the payroll at Sydney, and a matron was employed to oversee the wellbeing of a large staffing complement.” 11 Feeding the Troops During WWII the Railways were requested to provide meals and light refreshments to defence force personnel travelling by rail throughout NSW. The war years, with packed troop trains, with schedules and movements mostly kept secret, saw the Triple Rs feeding up to 4000 troops at a time. The inability of the Triple Rs to cope with this upsurge of business was initially overcome by supplementing permanent staff with volunteers from the Red Cross and Girl Guides. “The most important country refreshment room in NSW for troop movements during the early stages of the mobilisation was Albury. During one 48 hour period 6,000 men arrived there in 12 trains and were provided with meals before departing for Victoria.” 12 In addition to troops that stopped at the rooms, they also provided packed refreshments of sandwiches, fruit and cake. “ During March 1942, 9,000 United States troops were conveyed to Brisbane from Sydney on 18 trains. These men were provided with meals at every refreshment room on the North Coast route. ……..In one 36 hour period, 13,500 troops bound for Brisbane were conveyed in 27 trains originating from both Melbourne and Sydney. These troops were served 26,850 meals and were provided with 3,792 packet meals by the refreshment rooms along the route.” 13 Other activities during the war that the Triple Rs were called on for catering, usually at very short notice, included movement of German and Italian (and later Japanese) prisoners of war, transported by rail to prisoner of war camps. The R.R.R were called on to cater for other related facilities, such as the construction of the military aerodrome at Tocumwal, catering and canteen facilities for the defence and munitions works at 11 Messner, op.cit., p 41 12 Chris Banger, op.cit., p264 13 Ibid., p 264 14 Interview with Lorna Bridge, in Hearn, op.cit., p68 15 Messner, op.cit., p44 212 Catering for the Troops (State rail Archives) St Marys and the work of the Allied Works Council, established to build aerodromes, barracks, docks, bridges and roads. All of these projects and those involved with them needed to be fed. Lorna Bridge worked on the Grafton RRR during the war years, and recalls the chaos of the work: “When the troops came in we’d have to start work at 4 a.m. And then we’d have to work right through the day then, until about half past seven at night. And then sometimes when the train came in, a late troop train we’d work up until about ten. We had hospital trains and prisoner of war trains …. We had trestles down the back and we used to feed them there …..mostly Italians and Japs. Sometimes there would be 3000 on one train, yes my word, we used to get through them though. We didn’t have any dishwashers in those days, we used to do everything by hand.” 14 There are also many memories of people being stranded due to accidents, bushfires or floods and the like, to find solace at the Triple R. It seems that Triple R china and crockery were also popular collectibles. Messner reports on media accounts and railway data that shows a disappearance just after the war of some 35,000 spoons, 25,000 cups and thousands of towels from the refreshment rooms. This could be due in part to a policy by the Department, to minimise stoppage times, that allowed passengers to pay a deposit , take their drink with them and claim a refund at the next stop. 15 Chapter 6 - No Place for a Woman
*On Wooden Rails Chapter 6 8/30/05 8:50 PM Page 213 Unionising the Triple R Prior to the Triple RRRs coming under direct control of the Railways Department, the employees were not railway employees or covered under the Railways Act. They could not be covered by the ARTSA. As Mark Hearn recounts, management wanted to keep them separate from the mainstream workforce and the conditions they enjoyed. Rosemary Webb also points out that even when the refreshment rooms came under Departmental control, catering staff were not classified as permanent, but rather on a permanent casual basis which meant they were denied job security and benefits enjoyed by permanent employees. 16 The Secretary of the Shop Assistant’s Union made initial union representations in the early 1920s on behalf of refreshment room workers to management. It wasn’t until 1923 that the ARU first admitted and classified catering staff with other non-salaried employees such as porters and usefuls. In 1928 refreshment room workers were integrated into the general Traffic Branch of the ARU. 17 The only award relating to the refreshment rooms prior to 1938 was that covering the Hospitality, Caterers and Restaurant Employees Union. The ARU had formed its own RRR Division in 1923, with CJ Starkie (porter at Petersham) elected as Divisional secretary and Miss AF Graham (Central Refreshment Rooms) as Divisional President. These two activists laid the early essential groundwork in raising the plight of the refreshment room employees with management and within the union. 18 Rather than consolidate or improve their bargaining position, the move into the Traffic Branch of the union clearly weakened it and the groundwork of organising by Starkie and Graham. With the subsuming of the Refreshment Room Division within the Traffic Branch and the rolling of their key organisers, came the lack of commitment to the plight of these workers from some of the union officials. The Refreshment Rooms no longer had specialist representation from its own division, or its own organisers. Industrially, this ‘merger’ left the Refreshment Rooms under-represented, if not seriously neglected for some time to come. On Wooden Rails - Celebrating 150 Years of Work on the NSW Railways The grievances in the refreshment rooms, as outlined above, centred around working hours, broken shifts, grade classifications, understaffing, compulsory deductions for accommodation, occupational health and safety, permanent employment and management’s refusal to allow employees to wear union badges. Workplace representatives were also frustrated and undermined in their efforts by some of the full-time union organisers. One example is in relation to representations by Starkie on behalf of a Miss Mitchell at Central, who was forced to pay for on-duty breakages (a regular grievance was that such breakages were automatically deducted from wages). The union organiser, Davis had compromised with management, agreeing that she would pay for the breakages. 19 The already appalling conditions of refreshment room workers deteriorated further during the Depression years and despite continued efforts and representations to the union, by union representatives such as C.J Starkie and Miss A.F. Graham little was done to improve the situation for ten years. A major campaign was eventually organised by the ARU in the 1930s (under the leadership of the new Secretary, Lloyd Ross, but primarily organised by Eileen Powell). Eileen Powell (who was later to become the unsuccessful Labor Party candidate for the federal seat of North Sydney) organised the ARU’s RRR campaign that began in 1937. ‘We were getting reports from the per way reps and traffic staff that the girls were working under very poor conditions’ 20 Her skill as an organiser and strategies are well worth keeping in the modern organising guide book. She toured the worksites to gather information on conditions 16Rosemary Webb, Commemeorating Our Dear Departed Equal Pay Activists, Workers Online, 5 March 1999 17See Messner, op. cit., Pp 36-37. See also Rosemary Webb, A Refreshing Advance, Workers Online, 2 July 1999. 18Rosemary Webb, A Refreshing Advance, op.cit. 19Rosemary Webb, A Refreshing Advance, Workers Online, 2 July 1999. 20 Hearn, op. cit., p 66 Catering Services Staff, 1964 Chapter 6 - No Place for a Woman 213
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Chapter 6: - Rail, Tram and Bus Union of NSW

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