People Australia

Carl Leonard (Charlie) Larter (1894-1977) postal officer and trade union official

Birth: 1894 at Woollahra, Sydney, New South Wales, son of native-born James Larter (1868-1957), bread carter, and Frances Angelina (Fanny), née Wengert (1866-1937), born in Germany. Marriage: 1922 at Sydney to Dorothy Watson (1894-1976). They had one daughter and one son. Death: 8 June 1977 in hospital at Randwick, Sydney; usual residence Blackwood Avenue, Clovelly, Sydney. 

• Member of the Post and Telegraph Officers’ Association (PTOA) in 1918. Supported Bill Healy in a breakaway movement within the union in support of General (Fourth) Division officers away from Clerical (Third) Division officers and resulted in a number of unions being formed to cater for sectional interests.
• Reformed the remains of the PTOA into the Australian Postal Assistants’ Union in 1922 and became first NSW branch secretary and federal executive general treasurer.
• Worked at re-naming the new union to the ‘Fourth Division Postmasters Postal Clerks and Telegraphists Union’, in 1926.
• Conducted successful arbitration cases together with the arbitration advocate, Bill Healy and particularly notable in 1928 brought the pay of Fourth Division officers to the same level as Third Division Postal Clerks which had been paid at two increments below the latter at the same classification.
• Continued to be known for abilities in arbitration advocacy and for negotiations before the Board and other departmental authorities.
• General secretary of the union from 1936 until he retired in 1959.
• Elected representative of Fourth Division unions to the Joint Council, the High Court of the Commonwealth Public Service, from its inception until his retirement in 1959. Awarded the British Empire Medal (Civil Division) in June 1959.
• Cause of death: myocardial infarction, coronary thrombosis and megaloblastic anaemia.

Sources
Australian Postal Clerk, 28 December 1936, May 1959.