People Australia

Clarrie O'Shea, n.d.

Clarence Lyell (Clarrie) O'Shea (1905-1988) tramway employee, gaoled trade union official

Birth: 24 June 1905 at Franklin, Tasmania, son of Victorian-born parents James O’Shea (1863-1922), orchardist, and Ann, née Braydman (1875-1963). Marriage: 3 February 1925 at Brunswick, Victoria, to native-born Edith Florence Pomeroy (1901-1970), a milliner. They had two daughters and one son. Death: 16 August 1988 in a private hospital at Adelaide, South Australia; usual residence Hughes, Australian Capital Territory. 

• The family moved to Melbourne in 1911. Clarrie was a conductor at North Melbourne for 21 years and a driver at the Essendon Depot, Melbourne, for about two years with the Tramways Board.
• Delegate to the Victorian branch of the Tramways' Union for six years, later to become the Tramway and Motor Omnibus Employees' Union. Secretary to Victorian branch of the Tramways' Union from 1947 to 1970 (retired) and stood for office seven times in this period. President in 1946-1947.
• Federal secretary of the Tramways' Union in 1942-1944 and federal president from 1961. Gained improvements in wages and working conditions including the removal of 'call backs' and 'call forwards' and the gaining of time-and-a-half for Saturday work and double time for Sunday work.
• Gaoled for defying the Commonwealth Industrial Court ruling for refusing to pay fines levied on the union and was held to be in contempt of Court in 1969.
• Prominent in trade union and public protests, including widespread strike action across the country against the use of penal provisions for union activity forced government to release him from gaol and put an end to the use of penal provisions at the time.
• During the 1930s Depression he became a member of the Communist Party of Australia, leaving the party after the split to join the Peking-oriented breakaway group.
• Cause of death: heart block and myocardial infarction. 

Sources
Recorder, May 1994 No. 185; John Playford  Doctrinal and strategic problems of the Communist Party of Australia, 1945-1962, PhD thesis, ANU, 1962, p 428; Merrifield index, State Library of Victoria; Tramway Record, January 1949, p 22, January 1971, p 2, March 1971, pp. 16, 18; Tribune, 14 May 1969 p 3.