Tribute to Labour Leader Tas Bull

Tas Bull stopped the wharves one last time on June 3, 2003.

The giant machinery that straddles the nation's terminals came idle as members of the Maritime Union of Australia held one minute's silence for their former leader.

In Sydney the waterfront held a four-hour stop work. Workers bussed in from Port Botany and White Bay wharves, Newcastle and Port Kembla to 8 Darling Harbour.

They came to walk the Hungry Mile in honour of their past leader.

And in honour of their elders and labour ancestors who had hunted and fought on empty stomachs for a few bob's sweat and labour on the waterfront in bygone days. In the days before the union had the industrial muscle and leadership to win wharfies dignity and job security, decent pay and conditions.

Seafarers, linesmen and tug operators stopped work too. For Tas Bull was a seafarer before a wharfie as well as one of the chief architects of the amalgamation of his two great unions -- the Waterside Workers' Federation of Australia and the Seamen's Union of Australia.

Labor MPs Jennie George, Martin Ferguson and Meredith Burgmann, former PM Bob Hawke, ACTU chiefs past and present Bill Kelty and Greg Combet, and MUA officials from Melbourne, Brisbane, Darwin, Fremantle, Adelaide and across the Tasman were also there to send Tas off.

And staff.

For Tas was a labour politician, representing workers, fighting for their rights, and a lynchpin in Bob Hawke and Bill Kelty's Accord before stepping down to train a new generation of organisers to follow in his footsteps.

So it was that at 10.30 am a procession of around 1000 people, family, comrades and colleagues spanning three generations, linked arms behind the funeral car, down the Hungry Mile to 3 Darling Harbour, before joining buses to fill the chapel of the Northern Suburbs Crematorium and spill out onto the lawns and gardens.

"I'm sure Dad would have loved a stopwork meeting this large," said son Anders, a former wharfie and Melbourne union official.

It was not the first time Tas Bull had stopped the wharves. While his time as head of the Waterside Workers' Federation was one of fighting to maintain workers' integrity and conditions under the first onslaught of waterfront reform, it was also a time when wharfies could still flex their industrial muscle at liberty - for themselves and for the downtrodden here and abroad.

Tas Bull kept active and organising right up to the Tampa and the children overboard affair. He never retired from the sea or the struggle, distinguishing himself as Chair of Apheda, visiting aid projects in Cambodia, Vietnam, East Timor, Thai/Burma border refugee camps and Cuba, and involving himself directly in promotion, marketing and fundraising at home, while inviting friends and international guests to sail the harbour in his yacht at weekends.

As Director of the Cuban Children's Fund, he raised more than half a million in funds and hospital equipment. And as the founding chair of Organising Works, he helped train more than 400 new organisers.

These were all voluntary posts, as was his ongoing work on behalf of the ITF in the Asia Pacific.

Master of ceremonies at the memorial service, MUA National Secretary Paddy Crumlin, described Tas Bull's life as varied and eclectic.

" Tas's life was a great journey, literally as well as figuratively," said Crumlin. "He spent his youth travelling widely on seagoing tramps that took him not only to countries and cultures, but also to ideas that shaped his direction in life. His travels not only underlined his determination to seek social and labour justice, but to fight tyranny and human abuse in all its exploitative forms."

First to speak at the service was life long comrade John Cleaver. They went to school together in Hobart and to sea together in the forties - John as a stowaway on a British Aircraft carrier, Tas on a British tanker as a cabin boy.

They met up again in the US and tramped their way through South American seaways before being 'ringbolted' home on an Aussie ship.

"Tas Bull was a man of socialist morals," said John. "His voice was heard in the halls of internationalism - the ITF, Cuba and Apheda."

Friend and comrade Dr Alf Leibhold was the next in a line of comrades to speak. Tas had gone to him over a minor ailment when working the Melbourne wharves back in the 50s.

"Tas saw the world through a wide-angle lens," said Alf. "He changed the way I looked at the world forever. He was a great human being."

Alf spoke at length of the commitment and passion Tas had for social justice. How the world leaders of today sickened him. How conservatism had spread across nations like the cancer that engulfed his comrade and took his life long before his time.

"Our world leaders are drunk with power," said Leibhold. "They are vandalising the world. Tas was a man of integrity and a refuge from all that is evil in the world. We can best honour his life by continuing the struggle. We have to make sure his life has not been in vain."

In the words of his successor former National Secretary of the MUA John Coombs, Tas was a people's person.

Listing his many positions right down to the chair of the Hunters Hill ALP, the ITF Boomarang Club and the Mick Young Scholarship Trust, John lamented the loss of his friend and colleague while paying tribute to his work in making the wharves a safer place.

"It was down to Tas that any plan for any new ship coming into Australia would first require paperwork passing the general secretary's desk to ensure it was safe for waterside workers to work."

Coombs also noted that Tas Bull was respected, if not loved, by the employers.

As testimony to this P&O executive Tim Blood was among those at the chapel.

Also eulogising a mentor was ACTU Organising Works graduate Sally McManus. Tas had chaired the organisation set up to train a new generation of organisers and union activists, with 400 of his students graduating since its inception in 1993.

After a rocky start when the macho seaman-come-wharfie learnt a thing or two about how not to win over modern young women unionists, Tas Bull became a role model. Sally his protégé.

"We have one less in the reserve of union elders," said Sally. "When Tas spoke everyone listened. His work doesn't stop with his death. Tas's influence goes deep across generations of union activists and will continue to for a long time to come. . All of us take some of Tas's spirit with us to union meetings, to picket lines or to marches."

ACTU Secretary Greg Combet spoke of a lifetime commitment to social justice.

"Tas was a key person in the labour movement," said Greg. "He was a man of compassion, intelligence, integrity and tenacity. Tough, intelligent, pragmatic."

Greg recalled the last time they were together - in Concord Hospital, not long before Tas died. His mentor advised him not to have regrets, saying simply and truthfully: "I've been privileged to do all I have done in my life and I am proud of what I've done."

"The work Tas Bull did bettered the lives of many thousands of working people," said Greg, noting his funeral was the biggest turnout since that of legendary wharfie leader Big Jim Healy who died while still holding office in 1961.

"He inspired me and influenced me more than any other person. If I make a contribution it's also Tas's contribution. I feel for him the same as I do about my own father."

Finally, ITF past general secretary Harold Lewis took the podium. He had flown from London to attend the funeral and to pay tribute to the work Tas Bull did for the seafarers of the world.

"Tas's ability in debate was phenomenal," said Lewis. "It made people very wary of him in the ITF."

Noting how Bull's left wing political views created waves when he first arrived at the ITF, Harold recalled a particular tongue lashing directed at right wing affiliates.

"They were furious and shouted - 'you put Bull up to shaft us and you enjoyed every minute of it'. I told them the first part was wrong, nobody put Tas Bull up to anything. But they had the second bit right."

Paddy Crumlin then read a letter from Labor leader Simon Crean:

"Tas was a courageous leader but always had the common touch," it read. "As you walk the Hungry Mile today for Tas, all of us know that it is a so much better mile of Australia, and that it is part of a much better world, because of the life of Tas Bull."

All paid tribute to the role of Carmen, Tas's wife of 32 years. Carmen was a political woman in her own right, her family experiencing life under the military junta in Argentina.

When Tas was taken to hospital, she stayed by his bedside for six weeks - "so he would not wake up and be alone."

And when there was no longer hope, it was Carmen who ensured he got his wish to die in his Hunter's Hill home, near the harbour that had played so great a part in his life. She was by his side with her sister Zulema on the afternoon of Thursday, May 29- when, holding both their hands, Tas Bull took his last breath.