Australian Dictionary of Biography

Robert Arthur Pringle (1941–1996), rigger, union official, and social activist, was born on 11 August 1941 at Toowoomba, Queensland, younger son of Scottish-born Frederick William Pringle, soldier, and his English-born wife Mary Frances Buff, née Gaskin. Frederick worked as a factory hand before serving in the Australian Imperial Force in South-East Asia during World War II; he was interned in the Sandakan Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in North Borneo, where he died in February 1945. Bob attended Marist Brothers’ College, Ashgrove, Brisbane, leaving school at fifteen. He had several jobs, including cane-cutting, before moving to Sydney.

In Sydney Pringle worked variously as a labourer, scaffolder, and rigger. He joined the New South Wales Builders’ Labourers’ Federation (NSWBLF), where he became part of a leadership team that sought to forsake the union’s criminal and corrupt past. In 1967 he was elected guardian of the NSWBLF and to its executive, and in September 1969 he was elected president. On 13 May 1970 at the registrar general’s office, Sydney, he married English-born Jill Audrey Iley, née Thipthorpe, a waitress; they later separated. Over the next several years, together with Jack Mundey and Joe Owens, he reformed the union, secured better pay and conditions for members, and became increasingly committed to preserving historic buildings and protecting the environment. The NSWBLF became an international benchmark for militant and progressive union activity, pioneering ‘a new concept of unionism’ (Burgmann 1981).

Pringle shared the collective vision of the BLF leadership to reform the union and ‘civilise the industry’ (Mitchell 1996, 173). Between 1970 and 1971 he played a significant role in the margins strike and the accident pay strike. Both brought greater dignity to builders’ labourers; the former narrowed the pay gap between tradespeople and builders’ labourers, while the latter gained injured workers accident pay. During the margins strike he supported ‘flying pickets’ that disrupted non-union building work. On more than one occasion he was assaulted. He strongly believed that neither he nor the NSWBLF should be confined solely to industrial issues. The NSWBLF’s industrial strength and new-found status from strikes could take it into areas hitherto rarely embraced by industrial organisations.

A critic of apartheid, Pringle opposed the 1971 South African Springboks rugby tour. His tactics were simple: with another, he attempted to saw down the goal posts. He supported Indigenous Australian land rights, was a member of the advisory council of the Aboriginal Housing Committee, and in 1972 helped to establish the Aboriginal tent embassy in Canberra. A member of the Australian Labor Party, he also protested against the war in Vietnam, and supported women’s issues. Together with other NSWBLF leaders, he supported resident action groups who rejected large-scale building projects at the expense of working-class housing. Buildings in the Rocks and Woolloomooloo were saved through NSWBLF action. He also supported and helped enforce green bans where development threatened natural bushland. It was on the recommendation of ‘Brother Pringle’ that the NSWBLF placed the world’s first green ban on Kelly’s Bush. His telegram to the ‘Battlers for Kelly’s Bush’ declared: ‘… this union believes that social and environmental issues are matters that should be of concern to all citizens’ (Pringle 1971).

Along with other members of the NSWBLF executive, Pringle was a victim of internal union politics. When the federal BLF, led by Norm Gallagher and backed by the Master Builders’ Association, took over the State organisation in October 1974, Pringle reluctantly accepted the takeover and hoped for an end to hostile internal divisions. It did not end as he had hoped. While he continued to work, albeit sometimes as a member of the Australian Workers’ Union, the Mundey/Owens/Pringle-led NSWBLF was no more, and many—including Pringle—found themselves out of work.

‘Honest and open’ in his ‘style of leadership,’ the nuggety Pringle enlivened union events with ‘his infectious laugh and ever-present bongo drums’ (Burgmann 1996). He wrote poetry and small pamphlets, played drums in a jazz band, and was a member of the New South Wales district of the (Professional) Musicians’ Union of Australia. An avid fisherman, he drowned while fishing in July 1996 off Pearl Beach, and was cremated; his stepdaughter Jane survived him.