People Australia

Jack McPhillips, photo from Tribune newspaper, n.d.

State Library of New South Wales, 110366604

Leslie John (Jack) McPhillips (1910-2004) clerk, gaoled trade union official and Communist 

Birth: 21 March 1910 at Rockhampton, Queensland, son of Percy Richard McPhillips (1885-1951), a fitter and turner (“engineer”), born at Balmain, Sydney, New South Wales, and Carrie Isobel, née Armstrong (1887-1973), born at Brisbane, Qld. Marriage: 1 April 1933 at the Presbyterian manse, Bexley, Sydney, to Kathleen Rhoda De Waal (1913-1986), a milliner, born at the Hague, Holland. They had two daughters. Death: 1 September 2004 at Sydney. 

• Family followed father's work from Rockhampton, Queensland, to Woodford then Roma and further relocated a few times to New South Wales, eventually settling in Sydney.
• Jack attended Arncliffe Superior School, Sydney. Finished the Qualifying Certificate.
• Clerk and rouseabout in Sydney and Young District of NSW from 1924 to 1929. Joined Australian Labor Party in 1928. Secretary of Rockdale branch of ALP. President of Arncliffe electoral council in 1929.
• Resigned from ALP and joined the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) in 1931 because of ALP inability to effect unemployment. Attended CPA classes strongly influenced by John Bramwell Miles.
• Had intermittent employment in 1931-1939. Active in Unemployed Workers’ Association, including secretary of Rockdale branch and chairman of St George District in 1931-1939.
• Organiser, Australian Workers’ Union, for brief period, opposed the leadership and was dismissed. Appointed secretary of the North Australia Workers’ Union (or Northern Territory Workers’ Union) in 1940. Appointed industrial officer, Federated Ironworkers’ Association, joining secretary Edward Thornton as second full-time official in 1942.
• Elected to new position of assistant national secretary of the FIA 1942 or 1943 and to national secretary upon Thornton’s resignation in 1950 (defeated by Laurie Short in 1952), with position involving advocacy before Arbitration Court and Women’s Employment Board.
• Heavily involved in industrial action, 1945-1949 with steel strike 1945-1946, Victorian Metal Strike 1947, Coal Strike 1949. Member of the Australian Council of Trade Unions panel for basic wage advocacy and in 1949 served two prison terms of a month duration for contempt of the Arbitration Court. Among others imprisoned were Idris Williams and George Grant.
• Removed from office in FIA (along with Thornton) by Arbitration Court after Laurie Short challenged the election result. Declined nomination as national secretary of the FIA in 1952.
• Member of the central committee of the CPA 1945; CPA full-time organiser mostly on industrial work, 1951; CPA functionary 1952 onwards. Led the minority pro-Moscow faction that left the party in 1969 after the majority denounced the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
• Helped form the Socialist Party of Australia about 1971; administrative general-secretary of the SPA, later national organiser and president from 1984 to 1992.
• Continued to write party pamphlets and contribute to the Maritime Bulletin.
• Worked full-time as Australasian representative on Asian Bureau of the World Federation of Trade Unions about 1952.
• His major publications include: Arbitration?, (Sydney, 1952); Penal Powers: Menzies’ Weapon Against Unions and Wages (Sydney, 1958); Communists and the Trade Unions (Sydney 1981); (with Anna Pha) The Crisis, The Accord and the Summit Cummunique (Sydney 1983); and The Accord and its Consequences (Sydney 1985).
• Brother of Henry Joseph (Harry) McPhillips (1915-1962) also a Communist trade union official. 

Sources
Michael Hess, The Pilbara Aboriginal Pastoral Workers Uprising of 1946, Paper presented in Australian-Canadian Labour History Conference, Sydney, December 1988; Malcolm Henry Ellis, The Garden path (Sydney, 1949); John Playford Doctrinal and strategic problems of the Communist Party of Australia, 1945-1962, PhD thesis, ANU, 962, p.425; Edgar Ross information 1990; Hall Greenland, Red Hot: The Life and Times of Nick Origlass, p 304; Tribune (Sydney), 15 October 1952 p 4; Sydney Morning Herald, 2 December 1989 p 9; 1 September 2004 p 34.