Until the mid-1940s, apprentices were forced to undertake their training at night and unpaid, often after long shifts of work. The Melbourne Apprentices Committee was set up to campaign for the paid, daytime, training of apprentices. GEORGE CRAWFORD was an apprentice plumber in 1945 and participated in the MAP's campaign. Here is his abridged account of how apprentices won that struggle.
In 1945, at the end of World War II, apprenticeship terms of indenture varied greatly from trade to trade as to the length, period and curriculum of schooling and the wage rate.
All trades had some night-time training, most not as extensive as in the plumbing apprenticeship. When I commenced my apprenticeship in 1941, it was a six-year indenture with a five-year schooling period requiring, for the first two years, attendance at a technical college for half a day per week daytime training — in the employer's time — together with two nights of two hours per week in my own time, unpaid. The balance of the five years of schooling was then three nights per week in my own time, still unpaid.
As Australia transferred to normal peacetime activity, dissatisfaction arose among apprentices and support grew for daytime training, in the employer's time.
Contact between apprentices generally was limited, so it was difficult to assess the extent of that dissatisfaction. But in early 1944, a small number of apprentices got together with some members of the Eureka Youth League, the youth organisation attached to the Communist Party of Australia. Despite apprehensions about whether apprentices would be prepared to give up their, possibly, only free weeknight to attend, they decided to call a meeting for April 4. Leaflets were printed and distributed at technical colleges.
The meeting was held in the now demolished Temperance Union premises in Russell Street. The large meeting room rapidly filled, then the stairway, then the corridor out onto the street. Apprentices unable to get into the building milled about on the street itself.
It was decided to shift the meeting to the Trades Hall, and some 2000 apprentices marched up Russell Street, drawing attention from the passing crowd. This impromptu march engendered a spirit of excitement and enthusiasm.
The meeting enthusiastically endorsed a resolution to conduct a campaign for full daytime training for apprentices in employers' time and set up a Melbourne Apprentices Committee (MAP) to involve representatives from as many trades as possible.
The committee was composed mostly of teenage apprentices undertaking trade training, who had limited time to devote to the campaign. In addition, they lacked experience in organising campaigns and a knowledge of the procedures necessary to bring about the changes.
At the outset, the MAP recognised that apprentices would not be strong enough on their own and that they would need the support of the trade union movement. This was the major job of the MAP. Members went to their unions and spoke at executive and general meetings, requesting the support of tradesmen.
As a result of the work of the committee, unions requested the Melbourne Trades Hall Council to call a meeting of all unions covering industries within the apprenticeship system. After a series of such meetings, which considered a whole range of issues affecting apprenticeship, the THC adopted a broad 20-point program of reforms to the Apprentice Act, covering matters such as wages and conditions, terms of indenture for apprentices and full daytime training.
During 1946, the MAP organised a wide variety of activities to obtain support from many organisations and members of unions. It organised a contingent of apprentices to march in the May Day parade, and distributed apprentice newsletters carrying information on the campaign.
The campaign was mainly financed by trade unions — either through purchasing Apprenticeship News or by making donations. This included unions that did not have apprentices.
With limited resources, leaflets advertising specific meetings were sometimes produced by our printing apprentices, at times under the very noses of their managers.
During 1945 and early 1946, employers were seeking to continue the wage freeze that had been in operation during World War II. They used all the avenues available to attempt to delay wage improvements as Australia moved into the peacetime development period.
In early 1946 the painters' apprentices had the lowest wages in the building industry. They were paid 17 shillings for a 52-hour week, including their unpaid time at technical college. The Building Trades Federation, composed of representatives of all building unions, called the first one-day strike of all apprentices in the building industry in Melbourne on March 22, 1946. The stop-work meeting at Trades Hall declared support for wage increases and reform of the Apprenticeship Act.
The victory of the building unions' 1945 "go slow" strike resulted in the arbitration court issuing the Building Trades Award of Victoria on October 18, 1945, giving wage increases to apprentices. Employers and governments understood then that the apprentices would not rest until they had achieved their goal.
As well, the Victorian Principals' Association declared its support for the introduction of full daytime training, estimating that only 80 additional teachers would be required to implement it for all apprentices.
In the 1946 autumn session, the state Labor government, which won office in November 1945, amended the Apprenticeship Act. Among other changes, the new act provided for full daytime training to be paid for by the employers for all proclaimed apprentice trades. It eliminated compulsory night-time classes, and the operation of the act was extended from the metropolitan area to all Victoria.
It was a tremendous victory and established the principle of daytime training. Over time, the issue of full daytime training for apprentices was taken up by trade unions in other states and ultimately achieved for all apprentices nationwide.