Clarrie O'Shea

Who was Clarrie O'Shea?

Clarence Lyell O'Shea, more commonly known as Clarrie O'Shea, was the Victorian State Secretary of the Australian Tramway & Motor Omnibus Employees' Association who was jailed in 1969 by Sir John Kerr for contempt of the Industrial Court when he disobeyed a court order that his union pay $8,100 in fines, under the penal sections of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act.

A lifelong Communist, O'Shea was a leading member of the pro-China Communist Party of Australia at the time he was imprisoned.

O'Shea's jailing triggered the largest postwar national strike largely organised by left unions when one million workers stopped work over six days to demand "Free Clarrie and repeal the penal powers". On the sixth day O'Shea was released when the fines were paid by a man who claimed to have won the New South Wales lottery.

Over the previous five years, the Tramways Union had militantly defended and improved the conditions of its members. The union had accumulated 40 fines totalling $13,200 imposed on it by the Conciliation and Arbitration Court.