Biographical entry Wright, Tom (1902 - 1981)

Summary

Tom Wright was born in Scotland. He emigrated to Australia in 1913 or 1914 and was apprenticed in the sheet metal working trade at the age of fourteen.

He joined the Communist Party of Australia in 1923 and was appointed Financial Secretary by 1924. In that same year Wright had been appointed to the NSW Branch Executive of the Sheet Metal Workers' Union [SMWU]. He was the NSW Branch Secretary from 1936 until 1972, and was Federal President of the Union from 1940 until, again, 1972. Wright pioneered amalgamations of the SMWU with the Jewellers' & Stove Makers' Unions in the 1930s and 1940s and contributed to the formation of the Amalgamated Metal Workers' Union. At the time of his retirement in 1972 he was the NSW State President and National Vice-President of the Amalgamated Metal Workers' Union.

Wright was also a promoter of the ACTU (1926-1927) and was the Sheet Metal Workers' Unions' delegate from (at least) 1938 to 1972, serving on the ACTU Executive for many years and on its Shipbuilding Sub-Committee from 1946 until 1963. He was actively involved on the Executive of the NSW Labor Council for an almost unbroken period from the 1920s until his retirement in 1972. In 1943, Wright helped found the Metal Trades Federation on which he was a Sheet Metal Workers' Union delegate.

Tom Wright played a substantial part in the long campaign to achieve equal pay for women and was active in campaigns on Aboriginal rights having written an influential pamphlet on the subject in 1939.

Related entries

Archival resources

National Library of Australia Oral History Collection

• Jack Heffernan interviewed by Richard Raxworthy in the Labor Council of New South Wales oral history project, 1988, ORAL TRC 1948/38; National Library of Australia Oral History Collection. Details
• Mary Wright interviewed by Richard Raxworthy in the Labor Council of New South Wales oral history project, 1988, ORAL TRC 1948/43; National Library of Australia Oral History Collection. Details

The Noel Butlin Archives Centre, ANU Archives Program

• Sheet Metal Working Agricultural Implement & Stove Making Industrial Union of Australia - Records, 1881 - 1975, T23; N33; E196 (pt); E206 (pt); E232; E245; E262 (pt); The Noel Butlin Archives Centre, ANU Archives Program. Details
• Sheet Metal Working Agricultural Implement & Stove Making Industrial Union of Australia - Records, 1915 - 1973, E196; E206; N24 (pt); The Noel Butlin Archives Centre, ANU Archives Program. Details
• Tom Wright Papers, 1926 - 1978, N33; The Noel Butlin Archives Centre, ANU Archives Program. Details
• Tom Wright Papers, 1886 - 1988, P120 & Z267; The Noel Butlin Archives Centre, ANU Archives Program. Details

Published resources

Journal Articles

• Bollins, Frank, 'Veteran Trade Union Leader Dies', Metal Worker, February, 1981, 1981. Details