Paddy Garrity – Working with Unemployment
INTERVIEW: Paddy Garrity
PLACE: Melbourne
INTERVIEW DATES: April 1994, May 1995
Interview time 3hours 20 minutes
NOTES: Born: 1937, England. Profession: Seaman, renovator, arts activist, administrator , circus rigger, concert manager, festival organiser, Paddy migrated to Australia in 1951.
Early contact with the Australian Performing Group, Pram Factory, Carlton.
To Tasmania; working with young unemployed with *Father Julian Punch and nuns at Chigwell, suburb of Hobart.
Chigwell United Unemployed.
Activities with young unemployed, included arts, stall, bands. Trade union support.
1976 Chairman of Southern Regional Council of Australian Assistance Program. Growth of unemployed group activity.
Formation Unemployed Workers union in Hobart.
Media response. Experiences with politicians.
Development of UWU health food shop, grant from labour govt.
Campaign for transport concessions for u’ployed.
UWU members present play on unemployment at schools, public performances.
Activities provide money for bonds, for crisis needs.
Unemployed bands play at UWU dances. Arts activities.
Chigwell unemployed and UWU.
Welfare rights service.
Community houses.
Dealings, confrontations, with Dept Social Security bureaucracy.
SHELTER (organisation)
Agitation – an honorable profession.
*David Mazengarb & SWP.
Women’s Shelter.
UWU stalls at Salamanca Market.
Friendly people in community – various ways of helping u’ployed.
Mainland UWU, 1979
Unemployed attitudes to Unions.
LINKS:
- Dockyard daze: an experiment with art in working life in Williamstown Naval Dockyard 1983-85. (Australia) http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/56674923
- Our father; my father: a memoir http://trove.nla.gov.au/version/173176738
SAMPLE AUDIO: Paddy discusses how he started working with unemployed youth in Tasmania
This recording is held:
NATIONAL LIBRARY AUSTRALIA ORAL HISTORY
Contact us to access the full interview for educational, research or family history purposes:
Martie
Martie Lowenstein, is the holder of the Lowenstein Family Collection, a complete set of over 1200 interviews recorded by Wendy Lowenstein, author and pioneer Australian oral labour historian specialising in Australian working life. Permission to use the interviews for research and education is obtained by contacting this website. The Lowenstein family holds all rights to this collection of interviews recorded between 1967 and 2002.