Jim Tennison and Barbara Niven, Making History: The SDA Victorian Branch 1908-2008.
Knowles, Harry
Jim Tennison and Barbara Niven, Making History: The SDA Victorian
Branch 1908-2008, Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association,
Victorian Branch, 2009. pp. 160. $60.00 paper (or $20.00 for SDA
members).
This book covers the history of the Victorian Branch of the Shop
Assistants' Union. The introductory text makes it clear that this
is not intended to be an exhaustive history. Indeed, as the book also
articulates, this is a story or an account from the union's point
of view based on oral and written union sources. It is not then a
history of the branch as many journal readers would understand a history
to be but rather a description of the events and people which shaped the
development of the branch over its first centenary.
The book is organised thematically rather than chronologically
although each theme is presented generally in a chronological fashion.
The book begins with an industrial relations theme which covers the many
issues that challenged the union's development over the first one
hundred years of its existence. These include membership trends, award
making, trading and working hours, employment conditions, union services
and what are referred to as 'Power Points'--a discussion of
the allies and opponents of the union over the period.
The account of membership trends shows quite vividly how the branch
struggled to maintain and build membership over the first sixty years or
so of its existence. As with many Australian unions, war and economic
downturns provided exceptional challenges to the small number of
organisers the branch could afford. There were simply insufficient
bodies on the ground to cover the sheer number and geographical spread
of the workplaces. It was not until the National Membership Agreement
1971 was forged with employers that the union was able to benefit from
recognition within the arbitration systems and the requirement that all
new and existing employees join either the SAU or the Federated
Clerks' Union.
Working hours were a problem for the union and its members right
from the beginning. Shop assistants were working much longer hours than
the time reflected in their pay packets. Essentially they were behind
the counter until the owner decided to close the shop for the day. We
are also taken through the campaigns for extended trading hours in the
latter part of last century and the quest equal pay (lauded as one of
the union's greatest achievements) and the many challenges related
to pay and conditions associated with the coverage of such a large
casualised work force. The section on employment conditions is
particularly interesting although, somewhat surprisingly, Taylorism
rates only one paragraph. The branch managed to achieve Wages Board
decisions in the 1930s and 1940s for paid annual and sick leave but was
dogged by 'the vicious system of rationing' for over 40 years.
This allowed employees to be stood down without pay or notice and often
being required to work split shifts. It had been introduced during the
economic downturn in the 1920s and continued well into the 1950s.
Another fascinating aspect of working conditions was practice of
retailers engaging bogus customers in an attempt to uncover dishonest
employees. Initiated during the 1930s, these 'pimps' or
'purity gangs', as the union called them, were paid on the
basis of the number of dismissals achieved. Despite the union's
best efforts in having this nefarious practice raised in federal
Parliament and referred to legal authorities, the practice continued
until the 1960s.
Completing the first part of the book is a discussion of allies and
opponents, which contains a brief but colourful account of the
resistance to former national secretary Barry Egan's attempted
amalgamations with the Australian Workers' Union and the Building
Workers' Industrial Union in the 1970s. The second, third and final
parts of the book comprise brief biographical accounts of past and
present branch secretaries, organisers and specialists from the
union's inception to the present day.
The book was obviously written to commemorate the Branch's
centenary. It is a coffee-table- size tome that will undoubted test the
patience of library shelvers. It is not in any sense an analytical
history of the branch and is, indeed, much more a descriptive account of
how the branch developed. There is a list of interviewees and primary
and secondary sources consulted but no footnotes or endnotes. Strangely,
we are not told who authored the text although there is a reference to
the researcher and interviewer. However, to be fair, this account of the
union's past is clearly intended for an audience of past and
present members and officials and does not pretend to be any more than
that. It is eloquently illustrated with both black and white and colour
photographs and reproduced documents throughout. All in all this is a
highly readable account of the branch's history and will
undoubtedly be enjoyed by the many who observed or participated in it.
The history of the branch, however, is yet to be written.
HARRY KNOWLES
The University of Sydney
