People Australia

Deegan, Vivian Joseph (1921-1978) PMG lineman, trade union official 

Birth: 31 October 1921 at Hobart, Tasmania, son of Tasmanian-born John Baptist Deegan (1891-1949), labourer, and Elsie May, née Lewis (1886-1971).  Marriage: 9 September 1944 at East Brunswick, Victoria, to Hilda Gladys Munn (1925-19xx), a boot machinist born in Birmingham, England. They had one daughter and two sons. Death: 23 June 1978 at Hobart. Religion: Catholic. 

• Joined Postmaster General’s Department as lineman-in-training in 1941.
• Mobilized for service in the Royal Australian Naval Reserve on 29 October 1940. Trained at the shore establishment HMAS Cerberus at Westernport, Victoria, and at sea in HMAS Canberra. Posted in November 1941 to the shore establishment HMAS Leeuwin, Fremantle, Western Australia, he spent most of the next two and a half years at sea in its tender, the auxiliary minesweeper HMAS Olive Cam, operating off the Western Australian coast.  Short postings to the cruiser HMAS Adelaide and the destroyers HMAS Nizam and HMAS Quadrant followed, before he was demobilised on 11 January 1946.
• After the war he worked as a lineman with the PMG, and later was a technical instructor at Lines School, Hobart.
• In 1959 he was elected full-time secretary, Tasmanian Branch, Amalgamated Postal Workers Union, holding the position for 19 years.
• General president of union from 1973 to 1978. Described in the press as a moderate.

Sources
The Communication Worker, September 1978.