RED JOS

UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN SYDNEY NEPEAN
FACULTY OF NURSING AND HEALTH STUDIES

MASTER OF HEALTH SCIENCE (HIV STUDIES)

INVESTIGATIVE REPORT

AIDS AND THE TRADE UNIONS:
A CASE STUDY OF THE AUSTRALIAN LIQUOR, HOSPITALITY AND MISCELLANEOUS WORKERS UNION 1981-1995

E.J. (MANNIE) DE SAXE

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CHAPTER FOUR

METHOD OF INVESTIGATION

As indicated in Chapter 1, the methodological approach adopted for this study was that of a case study, in this instance, the study of a specific branch of a particular Australian trade union, the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers' Union (LHMU).

My intention was to examine filed Union documents of all sorts minutes of executive meetings, journals, occupational health and safety documents, cuttings from papers, correspondence with the ACTU and other trade unions on AIDS and related issues - to see if I could find out what information might have led to the formulation and promulgation of workplace related AIDS policies, if such policies, in fact, existed. It was anticipated that, through these documents, it would be possible to detail the nature and extent of the Union's response to the AIDS epidemic since the first cases were reported in Australia in the early 1980s (Timewell, Minichiello & Plummer, 1992). Given that I was likely to encounter an "evolutionary flow" of information from the Union's first awareness of the issue of AIDS in the workplace leading on to the need to formulate and disseminate policies to protect members from both the disease and the possibility of HIV/AIDS related workplace discrimination, I decided that the most logical way to present my findings was from a chronological perspective commencing with the first recorded reference to AIDS found in the Union's documentation.

The first requirement to be met was the obtaining of permission from the National Office of the LHMU to access their documents. Appendix A contains copies of the correspondence between the Union and myself in order to gain permission to have free access to whatever relevant material was available.

It seems relevant at this point to make reference to two significant problems which arose during my exploration of the LHMU's documentation since both of these influenced aspects of my "data collection".

The first of these related to the dating of documents. Having decided to write my report as a chronology, it was important for me to be able to date all of the relevant documents found regardless of whether they were articles, meeting minutes/notes, newspaper cuttings, leaflets, pamphlets, etc in order to make referring to them as easy and accurate as possible. Much to my great dismay - and no doubt to that of others doing similar searches - I found that many of the documents required to be included in the report were undated. As a consequence of this circumstance I have been forced to make estimates, usually based on the apparent historical context, of the most likely dates of such documents. Where I have had to make this assessment, I have recorded this in the in-text citation of the particular document. Historically, most items appeared to fall into place fairly satisfactorily.

The second problem arose when I began my search for copies of union journals and/or newsletters to members. Many of the journals/newsletters I needed to examine, especially those relating to the period 1984-1991, were missing from both the LHMU Library and the Union Archives; no one was able to find copies on the premises. However, on the advice of the LHMU Librarian, Adam Raffel, I contacted Margot Beasley, a journalist who had been writing a history of the LHMU, and had previously used many of the journals. Margot informed me that she had tried to locate those journals which were missing from the Union's premises, and finally found most of them in the Mitchell Library of the NSW State Library. This information was crucial in allowing me to gain access to many of the missing journals, a number of which contained information which was very relevant to my study.

By far the greatest majority of the documents I examined during the course of this study were held on the files of the LHMU. As such, most are not easily accessible by members of the public. For this reason, I decided to reference all such documents cited in the findings chapter (Chapter 5) within the chapter itself rather than attempt to list them all in the Reference Section at the end of the report.