From servants to citizens: A history of Victorian Public Service unionism 1885-1946

The history of Victorian departmental public service unionism had its genesis in the era of ‘New Unionism’ in the 1880s. On 17 June 1885, a group of approximately 1,000 Victorian public servants packed into Melbourne’s Athenaeum Theatre to create Australia’s first state departmental public service union. And yet despite its age, Victorian departmental public service unionism has seldom been the subject of serious historical analysis. It has alternatively been posited that public servants are devoid of the ‘bonds of class feelings’. Public servants have commonly been treated as a residual class in both Marxist and non-Marxist labour history writings. This dissertation therefore fills an obvious lacuna in Australian trade union historiography. It focuses on the experiences of ordinary Victorian public service unionists and the actions of the various configurations of Victorian service unionism from 1885-1946. The central argument of this history is that public service unionists, with the aid of the public service union, challenged the theoretical and practical limitations placed upon their political and industrial citizenship. Indeed, public servants refused to accept the traditional ‘servant’ stereotype. Throughout this dissertation the regulations governing the unique employment status of public servants are revealed. What becomes evident is that public service unionists are frequently subjected to extreme levels of political coercion as a direct result of the historical influence of the master and servant legacy. Successive governments were reluctant to frame public servants as industrial employees and thus they continually thwarted the attempts public service unionists to secure expanded industrial rights and recognition.