Statement from ITF President Paddy Crumlin
The ITF joins the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) and transport unions globally in mourning the loss of Jimmy Donovan, a former Waterside Workers' Federation (WWF) and MUA Sydney Branch official, lifelong member of the Communist Party, and a resolute member of the working class until his last day.
As a child, Jimmy was brought to the Waterside Workers' Federation’s union rooms by his mum, Jessie, who enrolled her nine-year-old son in art classes delivered there by artist Nan Horton in the union library built by Tom Nelson. It was as a child that Jimmy saw the Sydney wharfies’ mural first take shape in its and his formative years of development.
However, while he began his working life as an apprentice boilermaker at the NSW Government Railways in 1957, he eventually came back to the waterfront in 1963, where he quickly became a workplace leader and political activist.
Jimmy was a fighter and an uncompromising trade union and labour union leader that dedicated his life to the working class and understood the importance of class struggle driven by unity, peace, social justice and universal respect and recognition for worker and human rights in the face of the enormity of the challenges he dedicated his life to facing. He was an activist and leader of our community for over 62 years as a dock worker, an official and later an MUA veteran.
Jim was revered and cherished to the very end. His last contribution to the MUA Film Unit was just ten days before his passing, when he recorded a message of solidarity for our comrade Willie Adams of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). One legend of the waterfront commending the contribution of another.
The ITF offer our deepest condolences and sympathies to Jim’s family, comrades and friends in the hope we can in some way ease their sorrow at the passing of our dear friend and comrade.
Jim’s life was driven by courage and determination often during times of significant challenge and hardship for working Australians but also working people throughout the globe. He inspired us to follow his vision of a better, fairer and more just workplace. This in turn, he taught us, would improve our society, the nation and contribute to a better, fairer world.
In line with this commitment to working class internationalism, Jimmy was one of the instrumental players in the formation of the International Dockworkers Council (IDC). Likewise, at home, he was a leader of the MUA after its inception in 1993 from the amalgamation of the WWF and the Seafarers’ Union of Australia (SUA) and served as both a Sydney Branch Secretary but also as the MUA’s National President.
During these periods, one of the MUA’s most challenging chapters unfolded: the 1998 Patricks dispute. Jimmy was in the thick of it, day in and day out, alongside the tens of thousands of MUA members, supporters, fellow travellers and ordinary Australians who flocked to the picket lines to defend Australian dock workers’ right to a dignified, safe and respectful workplace.
No greater contribution could be asked for or delivered. Jim’s memory serves at this time of great attack and hardship on working people as a terrific inspiration to walk in his footsteps in everything we do as trade unionists.
Jimmy was a tremendous custodian of the great oral history of the MUA and its predecessor. Through his recollections, good humour and peerless record of activism on the Sydney waterfront, Jim served as an inspiration to young workers and new entrants to this oldest and most storied industry.
It was a source of immense pride for him when the Australian National Maritime Museum unveiled the Wharfies’ Mural in 2022, a permanent acquisition and display at the Museum made possible by Jim’s foresight in working with Tassie Bull through the early 1990s to preserve the mural for future generations. It would take almost another 30 years for the mural to finally go on display at the National Maritime Museum, something which Jimmy worked tirelessly with the Sydney Branch and National Office to achieve on the eve of our Union’s 150th anniversary.
Aside from his contribution to workers’ lives in their employment, Jim was an energetic campaigner for the preservation of the communities and streetscapes in which the working-class people of Sydney had lived and built communities. He carried this torch on behalf of his mum, Jessie, who had fought in the 1950s to protect workers’ housing in Woolloomooloo. In turn, history records that Jimmy was one of the last to leave Rowena Place in Woolloomooloo with his own young family in 1975 under threat of arson and murder after the “disappearance” of Juanita Nielsen.
Later in life, after retiring as a full-time official, Jimmy devoted himself to the ongoing cultivation and mentorship of young maritime union activists as a leader of the MUA Veterans. He was a fixture at stop work meetings and inductions of new members, as well as an energetic campaigner for the causes that the union tackled throughout the last twenty years.
Following in his mum’s footsteps, also continued to advocate for inner-Sydney’s working-class history, including as a guide of walking tours through Woolloomooloo where he was able to share the rich social and cultural life of the old Sydney with younger generations and visitors.
Vale Jimmy, friend and comrade, person of family, peace and equal opportunity and justice for all. Now at peace after a long and important life’s journey.
