In 1992, 42 years after he first climbed a ship’s gangway to onload its cargo on the Melbourne waterfront, Jim Beggs retired as the last national president of the Waterside Workers Federation of Australia – decades which saw a ‘quiet revolution’ of workplace conditions, technological change and negotiated reforms on the Australian waterfront. His story is a text-book case study of how the change in one ‘ordinary man’ can affect his whole working and family life.
Jim only took work in the tough, dangerous waterfront ‘because of the money’ it offered. He was engaged to be married and had started building their home. Part of the ‘apathetic majority’, he steered clear of the union battles and ideological warfare that gave the ‘wharfies’ (dock workers) such a bad name. But a chance encounter with his neighbour next door introduced Jim to the idea that ‘change in human nature’ was possible and that he could start with himself’ which would help bring change the industry around him. His autobiography, Proud to be a wharfie, tells his journey from accepting responsibility for his work-gang to building teamwork among those fighting it out in union battles, and, ultimately, bringing wholesale reforms in the waterfront industry. Along the way, Jim reached out to establish trust with farmers and fruit-growers (who hated wharfies for the industrial disputes that ruined their exports), created job opportunities to help rehabilitate ex-crims, and fought for justice for seamen ill-treated on ‘Flags of Convenience’ ships. Twenty years later, Jim and his wife Tui are still involved, working for constructive change.
You can read his story here.
