Obituaries Australia

The labor movement was deeply shocked at the death on August 21, in Sydney, of Mr. Mick O'Brien, general secretary of the Australian Railways Union and a member of the Interstate Executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions.

He was prominent in Queensland and Australian trade union and political affairs for over 40 years.

He had been vice-president of the Queensland Trades and Labor Council.

He was president of the Railway Strike Disputes Committee in 1948 which strike lasted for nine weeks. He represented his union for many years on the Queensland Trade Union Congress and at ACTU Congresses.

The record shows that Mick O'Brien was a man of firm industrial principles and unswervingly supported policies to advance the trade union movement and the cause of working men and women, sometimes doing so in spite of the most difficult opposition.

Mick O'Brien was known and well respected in the international trade union movement. He was a vigorous and logical debater on a wide variety of subjects.

Mick O'Brien can be recorded as one of the outstanding personalities produced by the trade union movement in this country.

The Queensland and Australian trade union movement in mourning his passing will record that his life was one of devotion to the cause of the trade unions and the people.