Colin F. Jones

~ Once Upon A Time ~
THE FACTORY

The lithographic printing machines were important because among other things they printed the cigarette logos on the flat sheets of steel, that were fed through the inked rollers by the two women who sat there for most of the day in the searing heat.

It was hot because of the ovens through which the freshly printed sheets passed in metal racks which stood them upright to enable them to dry while passing through them. At the far end a young man would receive them and slide them out expertly to place them upright against two pipe posts on a pallet. He had to do this quickly or the sheets would roll over the end and become crushed under the conveyer.

This was my first job in the factory and the constant pulling bending and hurrying to catch the next sheets coming through was very tiring and hot work. The oven temperature exceed 140 degrees, and there were four of them lined up like WW2 soldiers billets oval flat metal where the billets were corrugated iron and about 25 yards in length.

The women fed the sheets through the rollers from a stack that was lifted up by a man in front. The sheets which were sometimes aluminium as well as steel had sharp edges, they were also very heavy, and could slip and slice when lifting them up off a pallet to chest height (for me) to put them on the provided feed space at the front of the machine.

I worked on both the front and back of the Printing machine, preferring the front as it was not quite so hot, but the sheets were heavy to lift and I was not a very big man.

At the rear one day I slashed both my wrists – not to avoid work, but because I was stupid. I tried to take a rest between sheets and found them reeling over the back, that when I hurried to slide them out (normally two at a time) I lost my grip with my right hand and the sheets just kept going across my wrists. There was a red stop button, but such a thing would bring the Forman and printer running in anger. The logos would be ruined if the sheets stood in the oven for very long. With blood all over the place I pressed the red button as already half dozen sheets had met a grim fate.

The pallets when full were pulled away on a set of wheels that were pushed under the pallet lifting it a couple of inches of the wooden floor. The wheels were wide and made from heavy steel. One could barely get the thing moving on the splintered nearly worn out floor, and once they got rolling it was necessary to keep them going until reaching the storage ovens, where they were pushed in and dropped and left for the ink to continue to dry. Dragging these things along one was almost horizontal to the floor with hands gripping the T shaped handle of the long steel towing bar.

The floor was a mess and required steel matting to be lain but so far this had not been done.

The heat was bad but the noise was worse – quite deafening. Not only from the giant Lithographic Printing machines but also from the Die Presses thumping all day as they sucked tobacco tins into shape and stamped out their lids. They told me I would get used to the noise.

Pinky had. He had been working on a big Heinz machine for 40 years, and was stone deaf; well he was when he was outside where it was quiet. He could hear a pin drop on the factory floor. He was one of the first workers when the Printing machines were installed 40 years before.

Each day when I finished work, (I worked 3 hours overtime three nights per week) I had to catch a taxi to the Rail Station, then at the other end a bus out to where I lived. It took about an hour. The train cost me one-pound sterling per week.

Going to work was more of a rush, a bus to the station, onto the overcrowded train with an umbrella stuck up my bum, someone’s rolled up Daily newspaper stuck in my ear under my chin or up my nose, and on arriving there was the stampede for the bus and the fight to get aboard with a mad crowd of desperate women, handbags flying and sharp toes raking the shins.

It was too costly to get a cab every morning.

The Printer (the man in charge of the printer) was a man called Frank Casey. He was in his spare time a CMF Commando. I had done a little time in the infantry with the CMF, so we had a common interest. He was also a mad fisherman and had all the gear.

At the time I was playing soccer for first division Corinthians at Ryde on the other side of the city of Sydney. By the time I got there for training after work, and got home it was close to midnight. I just could not keep it up so I quit soccer and left perhaps a successful career behind.

I disliked the city, but there was no work in the country. It was a hard grinding slog in the factory. The women in particular never stopped all day every day, working flat out to make an extra shilling doing piecework. But the more skilled they became the faster they would rig the machines; the harder it was to make anything extra. They would criticize the printers and die setters every time a machine had a problem and had to stop. Such was the state of the situation.

Frank began teaching me close combat between the ovens at lunch breaks, and every weekend we went fishing. He had a little car an Austin A40. I knew quite a bit about Austin cars; but that’s another story. Later I leaned to play chess; I had a good teacher an A Grade player named Len Berry. Before I left, I was also an A Grade player, having lost at least a couple of hundred games without winning any, prior to that.

A bloke walked over to me one day and asked if I was in the union. “Certainly not,” said I “Why would I be?”

“Who do you think pays for your work clothes” says he.

“Me” says I. “You can stick your work clothes, I’ll buy my own”

About a week later the foreman came down and told me I had to join the union or I could not work there. “Why,” says I “Is this place run by Al Capone?”

I had never in my life before been expected to pay someone for the right to work. But I could not afford to leave; I had little choice. I immediately despised the Union. But I would not always be working in this factory. I couldn’t leave because my two sisters were working there as well, and they needed some of my money to pay the rent.

I was called a Printer’s Assistant, which was a fancy name used for a Labourer. People felt second class you see, if they were labourers, and that is the way they were treated.

The workers were mostly from Grease, Italy, Germany, England and Malta.

I figured since I could not go to soccer this was the ideal place to start up an “international’ soccer team. I had made a few friends, Bill Panopolas, Ron Cefi, Mario and a few others whose names I have forgotten. The factory backed on to a large park and golf links, (Moore Park) the factory was at Kensington, called S.T. Leighs.

So I took my soccer ball to work and one lunch hour I went out the back where many sat in the Sun to eat lunch and began kicking the ball around. Within a week there were 30 or more men out there creating havoc.

Eventually we talked the Factory into registering the club and off we went into the 2nd Division in Sydney wearing black and Red Maltese striped shirts. And would you believe I was Captain Coach of my own little international team.

After about two years there were a few union meetings held, which I did not attend. Those who ran it, the so called shops stewards were just labourers like me who had big mouths who liked to rule rough shod over anyone who even looked like disagreeing with them. They left me alone, I wasn’t important, and I didn’t think they were either, and I wore my OWN work clothes even though they robbed my pay of some protection money.

Eventually the little meetings grew into bigger meetings, and everyone was mumbling to one another about something so I thought I ought to force myself to attend. What was it all about; well it was about asking for a 12 shilling rise in pay and two weeks extra annual leave. That sounded fair enough to me, most other places were now getting four weeks off at Christmas.

But the Unions had no intentions of asking for anything. They were going to demand… which they did with the expected results. The factory was just a subsection of the larger layout next-door W.D. & H.O. Wills tobacco company, and there were more than 11 Unions involved. So they chose this little farce as a mixing pot to combine their unions for increased strength using us little creatures as guinea pigs.

They were going to demonstrate their great power using as little money we had given them as possible and take on one of the largest industries in Sydney.

The manager of the whole complex dropped in and told us that in January of the New Year they intended to grant the extra two weeks and that we would be receive 11 shillings rise in pay, so to wait until January before doing anything rash. It was at that time November.

Well we all thought that was pretty good, but of course that was not what the unions had planned… so the big meeting takes place. We had been holding short stop-work meetings for weeks now.

Out into Moore Park we all poured, except for those who headed for the pub, there was something like three thousand people out there. Even Bob Hawk a future Labour Prime Minister did his bit on the soapbox. They took turns telling everybody why they should go on strike and what utter fools they would be if they did not. This went on for most of the day a constant flow of you must do this; you will do that ending with, as always…. “But it is up to you. It’s your decision don’t let us force you one way or another”. I had never in my life seen bullshit stacked so high.

Near the end they asked if anyone disagrees to step down from the hill and stand against the factory wall, and they would be allowed to stand on the soapbox and say their piece. Three people did so, two women and me. I made haste to adorn the soapbox with my presence while the union bloke running the show ridiculed me all the way to it. I could not occupy it because the arrogant bastard would not get of it. Soon there were a couple of thousand people jeering and swearing at me. I thought I was going to be lynched. I could not get to the microphone and it did not take superman to realize I was not going to have my say that day.

Still determined I went into the factory to the manager and said,

“I would like to go to work”
“I’m, sorry,” he said “But you are not allowed to work.”

I questioned this at length but soon realized that it was a case of being part of the mob or butt out. I could not believe what a bunch of cowards they were, and all those on the hill who did not have guts to speak up.

So began our strike.

They had promised that we would be paid strike money to keep us going while we were on strike. Each day there would be a meeting at the Trades Hall in Sydney to discuss progress.

The staff of the Cigarette factory began filling the packets with stockpiled cigarettes by hand. They would not run out of printed packets for a week. I wished that I were on the staff. But I wasn’t I was just another gutless factory slave.

For the first two days the people were paid 5 pounds of their average wage per week of 15 pounds; then at the end of the week they were paid 5 pounds on the Friday. They were told that there may not be any money on Monday; and there wasn’t. At the meetings young working mothers were crying because they could not feed their babies, and many could not afford to travel to attend the meetings. As each day passed things got a little more steamy.

We had now reached the stage where the endless line of soap box wankers continuing to tell everyone to stick it out, because that’s what they really wanted to do; because they had chosen to strike. One by one they introduced their new words… “Now Comrade, so and so will speak…” They were doing everything but wave the Red Flags, and the people were beginning to awaken.

Meanwhile the workers found they had to help themselves and they formed groups of six or so to go begging around the factories and the waterfront for money. I went along with a party led by a woman from my department, so off we went. I was at this point wondering why the strike was not about the working conditions, but I guessed that was the intended follow up if they won the first lot.

We arrived at the open door situated at the top of about three steps of the Government Printing Office. Venturing inside there was no one at the front desk so we followed the hallway around to the left and into a long factory like processing line, where people were doing whatever they were doing to knock out all things Government, and secret.

We got quite a hand out from that lot, more than fifty people, and then up we went to the next generous lot of Government workers. I’m not sure whether they were giving us freshly printed notes or not, but we already had our pockets full. But we had gone a floor too far. Suddenly doom and gloom appeared at the door. They looked like magpies in their suits and ties, and probably had machine guns under their jackets. They certainly looked a little different from the Grey leather apron workers.

They rounded us up in a flash and we, yes, we went up another two floors: maybe they were going to give us more money! But alas we were wheeled into a small office, we had trouble all fitting in, and while we shuffled around a couple more magpies chastised us most unfairly and threatened us will all sorts of horrible things.

Our wide innocent eyes though won the day, but we had to give back all the money we had begged from those generous persons, and we were escorted out the door that was slammed shut behind us. I reckon that door has been shut ever since. Boy wouldn’t today’s media have had a field day with that one. We could have made a fortune for the story.

©Copyright May 3, 2008 by Colin F. Jones