A GROUP of Murdoch third-year radio feature-reporting students is working with Perth’s Labour History Society and Curtin University on an unusual oral history project.

The students have spent part of their first semester interviewing former employees at the Westrail Midland Workshops for a study of labour history. Murdoch Radio and Television Lecturer Mia Lindgren said the audio material would be used to compile oral history radio features for release to community radio, and eventual archiving at the Battye Library.

Project co-ordinator Ric McCracken of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History (ASSLH), Perth branch, based at UnionsWA, Perth, said the students’ work had been outstanding.

No other oral history project of such magnitude has been undertaken on an industrial site in Western Australia.

“To date, more than 200 past employees have expressed interest in being involved, with dozens already interviewed,” said Mr McCracken.

“Many have also offered or donated Workshops’ memorabilia, including photographs, union cards, apprenticeship papers, long service certificates, sporting awards and badges.”

The Workshops formed the core of the Midland community from 1904 until their controversial closure by the then Liberal government on March 4, 1994.

During the 1980s, they entered a period of decline and the workforce fell to about 1000 people, although in their heyday they employed more than 3500.

Shortly before the 1993 State election, the Liberals promised to re-equip the Workshops if they won government, thus ensuring their long-term future.
Despite this pre-election promise, however, the Workshops were closed just over a year later.

Former Midland Workshops employee - and the last Workshops timekeeper - Kevin Mountain, said he remembered the day of the closure like it was yesterday.

“I saw 1000 men hauling a locomotive by hand down the tracks at Forrestfield in protest at what the government had done,” he said.

Mr Mountain, who was interviewed by Murdoch MCC (Media Communication and Culture) radio student Ricki Barnes, is a senior ambassador for the Midland Redevelopment Authority and nicknamed “Mr Railways”.

There is little he does not know about the place.

Now 65, Mr Mountain started his railway career at the Workshops in 1952 as a junior clerk at just 16 years of age.

He worked in a variety of other positions around the Workshops for the next 40 years.

Other contributors to the project, apart from the workers themselves, include Murdoch’s Rob Bygott (Digital Video Workshop); Stuart Reid of the Oral History Association; and Jennie Carter, team leader, Original Materials, of the JS Battye Library Archiving Workshop.

However, little could have been achieved without the financial assistance of a two-year, $80,000 Australian Research Council (ARC) grant, received last year.

“The grant submission cited four industrial unions as partners - the Communications, Electrical, Engineering and Plumbing Union (CEEPU); the Australian Services Union (ASU); the Rail Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU),” said Mr McCracken.

“The JS Battye Library is also a partner and the main repository of the research, as is the Labour History Society.”

He hoped Murdoch would be included as a partner next year, depending on the outcome of another ARC grant application for a further three year’s funding.

“If the grant application is successful, I expect the radio students to produce many more interviews on tape, CD-ROM and, if possible, digital video.”

In the meantime, ongoing management of the Workshops’ oral history project continues to be carried out by Mr McCracken, in collaboration with Curtin University’s Research Fellow Dr Bobby Oliver and the Labour History Society’s Neil Byrne.

For more information about the Midland Workshops Project, or how to become a volunteer, please contact Mr McCracken at UnionsWA on (08) 9228 5941.