People Australia

Thomas (Tommy) Cavanagh (possibly also known as Kavanagh) (1890?-1968?) rock chopper, sewer miner and militant rank and file trade unionist

Birth: was possibly the Thomas Christopher Cavanagh born in 1890 at Cobar, New South Wales, son of John (Jack) Cavanagh (1858-1919), a stone mason, born at Ballarat, Victoria, and Emily Rose [or Dinah), née Grant (1862-1938), born at Bathurst, NSW. Marriage: 26 October 1906 at the new Unitarian Church, Elizabeth Street, Sydney to native-born Ada May O’Brien (1889-1978). They had one daughter and three sons. Death: 30 December 1968 at Linburn Convalescent Hospital, Burwood, Sydney; usual residence Darling Street, Glebe, Sydney. Religion: Anglican. 

• Employed by the New South Wales Public Works Department on Sydney sewerage construction in the late 1920s.
• Delegate from city section to the (first) rank and file conference of the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU), Railway Workers and General Labourers’ Branch, Sydney, in October 1927. Elected to provisional committee and as vice-president of the Rank and File Committee. At the centre of a large strike, Ryde sewerage construction, in November 1927, with John Williams. Victimised as AWU leader, George Bodkin, was colluding with the employer.
• Re-elected vice president at second and third Rank and File conferences in December 1927 and September 1928.
• Was an employee of Metropolitan Water, Sewerage and Drainage Board and member of Water Board house union when the boards took over construction works from the Public Works Department in 1929.
• Prominent rank and file activist in the Water Board union from 1929 to about 1939, including committee member of the radical Wollongong branch in 1931. Centre of large strike in 1937.
• Occupation on death registration: ground tester. Cause of death: myocardial infarction (1 hour) and chronic cor pulmonale (years).

Sources
Peter Sheldon, Maintaining control: a history of unionism among employees of the Sydney Water Board, PhD thesis University of Wollongong, 1989. Workers’ Weekly, ; Metropolitan Board of Water Supply and Sewerage Employees Association minutes; Ron Mackintosh interview, 29 September 1985, Sydney; Rank and File Conference of Railway Workers and General Labourers Branch, AWU, Sydney, October 1927, Mitchell Library, Sydney.