People Australia

Ferdinando Thomassino (Nando) Lelli (1931-2022) fruit picker, footballer, labourer and trade union official

Birth: 22 December 1931 at Ascoli Piceno, Marche, Italy, son of Mario Lelli, clerk, and Rosa, née Ulerucci. Marriage: 12 March 1960 in St Patrick’s Church, Port Kembla, New South Wales, to native-born June Patricia Gilmore (1939-?), cashier. Death: 5 November 2022, late of Unanderra, NSW. 

• On leaving school he trained as a power linesman and played soccer professionally in Italy.
• A fruit picker, he arrived in Melbourne aboard the SS Fairsea in February 1957.
• Held various jobs including grape picking near Mildura and cane-cutting in Queensland. Moved to NSW and gained work as a rigger in construction firms.
• Played soccer for Apia Football Club (Sydney). Moved to Wollongong in 1961. Worked for Australian Iron and Steel (later BHP and Bluescope) at Port Kembla as a bricklayers’ labourer and as a trades assistant in the shipping department.
• Member, ALP left wing with socialist orientation aligned with party. Joined rank-and-file committee in 1961 and became rank-and-file movement candidate for assistant secretary of Federated Ironworkers’ Association (FIA) (later Federation of Industrial Manufacturing and Engineering Employees (FIMEE), Port Kembla branch, and defeated Laurie Baldwin in 1970.
• Secretary of FIA, Port Kembla branch, from 1972 until he resigned as secretary in 1990, continuing as research officer to 1991.
• The driving force behind rebel Port Kembla branch. Disliked ‘right-wing’ politics. The Rank-and-File group consolidated its position at the 1974 elections despite a concerted attempt by the official and Labor ticket to defeat him.
• Campaigned on a platform of standing up to the national office and of advocating interests of ethnic workers. In 1980s he faced far-left opposition in his own branch with opponents claiming that he had become too accommodating with national office.
• Worked closely with left-controlled South Coast Labour Council and served as president. Assisted in establishing the South Coast Employment Project, a tripartite body which attempted to attract investment and jobs to the Illawarra, and became board member.
• He was first official from a non-English speaking background to be elected to a branch secretaryship in the FIA (did not speak English when he arrived in Australia).
• Commended in media for achievement as progressing to trade union leadership position in the early 1970s when it was unusual to have come from a non-English speaking background.
• Awarded Honorary Fellowship by University of Wollongong for his outstanding contribution to the trade union movement and community.

Sources
Illawarra Mercury, (Wollongong), 6 June 1990 p 1, 1 January 1992, 6 November 2022; Italo-Australians and Politics, in Stephen Castles, Caroline Alcorso, Gaetano Rando and Ellie Vasta (eds) Australia’s Italians: Culture and community in a changing society, (North Sydney, 1992), pp 136-138; Robert Murray and Kate White, The ironworkers: a history of the Federated Ironworkers’ Association of Australia (Sydney, c1982); interview (1995) in National Library of Australia Oral History collection.