Jack McPhillips
Leslie John (Jack) McPhillips (* 1910 in Rockhampton , Queensland ; † September 1, 2004 in Sydney , New South Wales ) was long-time party leader of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) and a well-known figure in the 1940s to 1960s the Australian trade union movement.
Early life
Jack McPhillips was the oldest child in his family and went to a Catholic school, which he finished with a qualified degree. His father was a railroad engineer and he entered working life in his early years and later worked as a clerk at the Sydney Municipal Council and as an appraiser for wool. McPhillips graduated from East Sydney Technical College . He worked in a farmers' cooperative and then at Colgate-Palmolive-Peet , where he also held positions in the respective trade unions . He was married from 1950 until his death and had two daughters.
Political life
In 1928 McPhillips joined the Australian Labor Party , which he left during the Great Depression in 1929 and then joined the CPA. Like hundreds of thousands of other Australian workers, McPhillips was forced to take on various temporary jobs between 1931 and 1939. He was active in the then Unemployed Workers Movement and led the CPA-led Militant Minority Movement , which pursued the goal of a militant, class-struggling unity union. In 1940 he became union secretary of the Federated Ironworkers Union and went to Darwin for 18 months and in 1950 he became its national general secretary. In 1949 he was arrested twice for active support during the Australian coal mine strike of 1949 and convicted and briefly detained by the Industral Court . In 1952 he lost his position in the Ironworkers Union during the Cold War and the emergence of anti-communism at the instigation of an anti-communist group in this union. From 1952 to 1968 worked in the CPA, which he supported in union work.
When criticism of the military intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Eurocommunism as an alternative party model arose within the CPA , McPhillips was instrumental in the break-off to the Socialist Party of Australia in 1971, which became party leader in 1984. In the SPA, he advocated cooperation with the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) when the ALP and the unions united in the Australian Council of Trade Unions advocated a change in wage structures in 1983. The SWP renamed itself the Democratic Socialist Party in 1990 .
In 1988 McPhillips supported the SPA and SWP for joint participation in elections as the Socialist Alliance . The association failed after a sharp argument over the Chinese massacre on Tian'anmen Square in June 1989 because the SWP condemned it and the SPA endorsed it.
The CPA disbanded in 1991 and McPhillips campaigned in 1996 for the SPA to take over the name Communist Party of Australia .
After the fall of the Soviet Union , McPhillips was ready to face the new demands of a socialist movement, which set him apart from many communists of his generation.
He died in Sydney at the age of 94.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ bellaciao.org : Dr. Hannah Middleton [current Secretary General of the Communist Party of Australia], Dr. Salt [daughter of Jack McPhillips]: Australia: Leslie John (Jack) McPhillips, Trade unionist, 1910-2004, champion of workers' rights , accessed March 19, 2011
- ↑ a b c d greenleft.org.au Jim Mclloy: Jack McPhillips, communist and trade unionist (English), November 17, 1993, accessed March 19, 2011
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | McPhillips, Jack |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | McPhillips, Leslie John |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Australian trade unionist, leader of the Communist Party of Australia |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1910 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rockhampton , Queensland |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 1, 2004 |
| Place of death | Sydney , New South Wales |