People Australia

Jim Slater, n.d.

ANU Archives, NBAC N409-111-01

James (Jim) Slater (1897-1978) sugar worker, trade unionist and Communist editor

Birth: 25 August 1897 at West Bromwich, Staffordshire, England, son of Joseph Edward Slater (1867-1936), brickyard labourer, and Mary Ann, née Poxon, general servant. Marriage: 2 February 1944 at Brisbane, Queensland, to Anna Joyce (Joyce) Divers (1915-1990), born at Heacham, West Norfolk, England. They had one son. Death: 26 December 1978 in Fremantle Hospital, Western Australia; usual residence King Street, East Fremantle. 

• Left school aged 12; apprenticed as a moulder. Served in the British Army during World War I.
• Moved to Australia in 1922. Worked in the Queensland cane fields, joining the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU). Joined the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) in 1932, becoming an organiser with the Cairns Branch.
• Active in rank-and-file campaigns of the early 1930s, clashing with Clarrie Fallon and other AWU officials. Was expelled from AWU.
• Prominent in North Queensland unemployed struggles, including the Parramatta Park riots in Cairns and the campaign for shelter. Organised for the CPA on Atherton Tableland.
• Stood as a CPA candidate for the seat of Kennedy at the September 1934 federal elections. Recontested the seat in a by-election in December 1936.
• Member CPA central executive 1938-1948. In 1940 he became the first editor of Queensland CPA’s Guardian newspaper and was later director of the CPA’s Marx School.
• Following a serious illness in 1950 he worked as a weekend watchmen on Brisbane River dredges. Joined the Seamen’s Union, becoming a life member. Experienced long periods of ill health in later life.
• Moved with his wife to Western Australia in 1976 to be with his son and family.
• Cause of death: lobar pneumonia. 

Sources
AWU Leaders Exposed (CPA pamphlet) c. 1932; Workers’ Weekly, 3 August 1934; Tribune, 24 January 1979.