People Australia

William Stanley (Bill) Latter (1925-2002) seaman, miner, trade union official and Communist

Birth: 30 May 1925 at Rochford, Essex, England, son of Frederick George Latter (1902-1968), building contractor, and Matilda Ann, née Thompson (1904-1994). Marriage: 1949 at Fremantle, Western Australia, to Juliet Marks. Death: 28 June 2002 at Western Australia. 

• Educated in English council schools. Went to sea as an assistant cook about 1939. Elected Seaman’s representative on SS Orbita about 1942. Came in contact with the Communist Party of Australia in Melbourne with solving an on-ship dispute.
• Served in Royal Navy from 1942 to 1946. Re-joined merchant service and became ship delegate on numerous ships from 1946 to 1948.
• Jumped ship in Whyalla, South Australia, and became shop steward, Federated Ironworkers, 1948. Drove across Nullarbor to join relatives and worked as a rigger in Fremantle, Western Australia.
• Read Marx, Engels and other Communist literature and became active in a local Communist Party and left due to harassment by security services.
• Moved to Collie, WA., and worked at a Proprietary mine loading timber in 1949. Elected on committee of mine lodge. Narrowly defeated in election for vice-president of Collie coal miners’ union in the late 1950s.
• Elected secretary of Proprietary colliery lodge in 1950-52. Was full-time president and advocate for Collie miners’ union from 1952 to 1961, learnt skills of industrial advocate by experience. Achieved success in case for 35 hour week.
• Led strike by Collie miners unions in 1961, which was over the issue of union coverage and work conditions. Lost office as president following absence due to visit to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1961.
• Returned to Australia, worked as a miner and became secretary of Western No. 4 lodge and member of coal tribunal, 1961-1964, retired due to back injury.
• Industrial Officer, Miscellaneous Workers Union and worked as free-lance industrial advocate for a wide range of unions in WA including WA Trades and Labor Council, Barmaids and Barmens Union, Psychiatric Nurses, Fire Brigade Officers, Fire Brigade Employees, TAB agents, Timberworkers and Hotel Club Caterers Union from 1964 to 1970. Encouraged and trained professional advocates for unions.
• Founding member, TLC Arbitration Committee 1965. Convenor, TLC Education Committee 1969-1984. Secretary of Firemens and Fire Brigade Officers organisations (amalgamated into Fire Brigade Employees Union 1980), 1970-1980.
• Held various positions in WA Trades and Labor Council including vice-president 1972-1975, president 1976-1979 and director and chairman WA Trades and Labor Council Terminating Building Society, 1972-1986. Proxy delegate, ACTU Executive 1974-1979.
• Had quit the CPA by 1990.
• Appointed administrator WA Psychiatric Nurses Union by WA Industrial Commission to arrange affairs, audit and election of new secretary of union, 1981. Industrial Advocate, State School Teachers’ Union of WA (Inc), 1982-1986.
• Active in anti-Vietnam demonstrations and imprisoned for political beliefs. Councillor, Fremantle City Council 1981-1990, deputy mayor, 1984-1987. Wrote papers and published widely on industrial advocacy and the labour movement including ‘Brief History & Synopsis of WA Industrial Arbitration Act’, ‘Can Strikes be Made Obsolete?’, ‘Whither Arbitration?’, ‘The Informal System for the Settlement of Disputes’, ‘Demarcation and its Cause’, ‘Equal and Unequal Rights’, ‘A Life in the Cause of Social Justice’, ‘A History of Female Wage Developments in WA (1900-1981)’, ‘Is Arbitration Enough?’.

Sources
Oral History Interview 2489; John Playford, Doctrinal and strategic problems of the Communist Party of Australia, 1945-1962, PhD thesis, ANU, 1962, p 424; papers at State Library of Western Australia; Raelene Francis, 'Obituary', Labour History, issue 83, Nov 2002, pp 213-14.