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HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ADJOURNMENT
ECOB, Mr. Ernest Charles
SPEECH
Monday, 28 August 2000
Page: 19479
Mr MOSSFIELD (10:30 PM) - I would like to advise the House of the death of Ernest Charles Ecob, who was Secretary of the New South Wales branch of the AWU from 1980 to 1993. Ernie was born in Dubbo in 1930. His father was a Baptist minister, and the family moved around quite a lot. He went to school in Leeton and Lawrence until he was 12 and then moved to Armidale. Ernie held various occupations in the rural industry, from rabbit trapping to shearing. His occupation took him to Coonamble, where he met and married his wife Joan. They had five children.
In 1964, Ernie became an organiser with the AWU and was involved in the DMR, the Grain Elevator Board, the pastoral, construction, mining, greenkeeping, cotton and forestry industries. Ernie was very proud of the awards negotiated by him for the building of the third Sydney airport runway, the Sydney Harbour tunnel and the Anzac Bridge. These three large projects all came in on time and under budget. Ernie held the position of Vice-President of the New South Wales Trades and Labour Council from 1983 to 1985 and was President of the Trades and Labour Council from 1986 to 1988. Ernie represented his union on a number of superannuation boards. He was a dedicated union official and his members were always his first priority. He was also an active member of the Australian Labor Party and served on the New South Wales ALP administrative committee. He was awarded an AM for his services to the community and the trade union movement in 1988. Ernie died in hospital last Monday, 21 August. I offer his wife Joan and his family my deepest sympathy.
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Obituaries
Ernie Ecob, AM
Union Leader
1930-2000
Ernie Ecob, who has died in Sydney on 21st August 2000 at the age of 69, was a well-known, often controversial union leader. Ecob devoted most of his life to the labour movement.
Born in Dubbo, the eldest of four children, he had a strict upbringing from his father, a Baptist minister.
The boy's education suffered as the family moved around the country with his father's appointments from one church to the next.
When the family went to Hurstville, Ecob was apprenticed to an umbrella maker but in 1949 he rebelled against his father and returned to the bush, taking on whatever work he could get, including rabbiting.
Given a start as a learner shearer, Ecob settled in Coonamble, where he married Joan Farrell in 1951. They were to have five children.
Ecob became a good shearer and an active member of the Australian Workers' Union. In 1956, when the shearing pay rate was cut by 5 percent, a bitter pastoral strike erupted and lasted four months until an appeal by the union to the Industrial Commission restored the old rate.
Like most AWU members, Ecob supported the union and refused to work at the cut rate. He fed his family from his vegetable patch, on rabbits and the occasional stray lamb.
After the strike he resumed shearing and was a union delegate until 1964, when the powerful Charlie Oliver, AWU secretary, took him on as an organiser.
At great risk to himself, Ecob, then an elected organiser, supported Oliver when he lost control of the union in 1969. The Oliver team regained control in 1973 and Ecob was elected branch president.
In July 1980 Ecob became branch secretary when Reg Mawbey resigned, and the Ecob family moved from Coonamble to Sydney.
Ecob devoted his life to workers and was available for union members seven days a week. He did not discriminate against women or people of another faith or race, or those born overseas - except for New Zealand shearers who worked for under-award rates and used a wide comb.
From 1983 to 1985 he was a vice-president of the Labor Council of NSW, and then served as its president from 1986 to 1988.
He also served on the administrative committee of the Labor Party's New South Wales branch.
Ecob never lost a union election and kept the AWU solid for the right-wing faction.
As a keen gardener, he was delighted to be made a trustee of the Bicentennial Park at Homebush Bay.
He retired in 1993 to devote himself to his family, to enjoy his garden, to go fishing and to work for his church.
Ecob was a committed Christian and a Mason. He died in Bankstown hospital from pneumonia after fighting bone cancer for some time. An organiser to the end, he chose the music and the psalms for his funeral, which was held at St Mark's Anglican Church, Revesby.
He is survived by Joan and his children, Malcolm, Michael, Susan, Judy and Russell.
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Australia and New Zealand, Find A Grave Index, 1800s-Current
Name: Ernest Ecob
Death Date: 21 Aug 2000
Cemetery: Woronora Memorial Park
Burial or Cremation Place: Sutherland, Sutherland Shire, New South Wales, Australia
Has Bio?: N
URL: https://www.findagrave.com
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