Victorian Trades Hall Council. The voice of Victorian workers since 1856.Victorian Trades Hall Council. The voice of Victorian workers since 1856.

Vale Kenneth Charles Stone, AO

 
The Victorian labour movement notes with sadness the recent passing of former Victorian Trades Hall Council Secretary, Ken Stone, who passed away on Thursday 16 March 2006. Comrade Stone became Secretary of the Council on 3/07/1969 until 19/07/1985. His leadership saw the Council through some of the most tumultuous years in Australian political history.
The Victorian Trades Hall Council offers its condolences to his family.

Kenneth Charles Stone, born 30 March 1926, had a lifelong association with the trade union movement. His father was treasurer of the Australian Railways Union.
Mr Stone became an apprentice stereotyper at Lamson Paragon in Richmond. He worked as a printer at the Herald and Weekly Times and became an organiser with the Printing Industry Employees Union of Australia, which later became the Printing and Kindred Industries Union.
In 1961 he rose to assistant secretary of the PKIU. In 1964 he became Assistant Secretary of the Trades Hall Council and in 1969 took over from Mick Jordan as Secretary of the Hall. He became secretary at a critical time in the council’s history when a number of unions had disaffiliated. By 1973 the rift had been healed and he was still in charge.
In this time he was elected to the position of Junior Vice-President of the ACTU and represented Australia at the International Labour Conference in Geneva in 1969 and again in 1981. He represented Australia at a number of international forums travelling to West Germany, Israel, the Soviet Union, Norway, Sri Lanka and New Zealand.
Upon leaving Trades Hall he became National Director of the Trade Union Training Authority.
Ken Stone’s achievements were not confined solely to the trade union movement. He sat on the Foreign Investment Review Board from 1984 and was Acting Chairman from 1992 until his retirement in 1997.
In 1991 Mr Stone was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for services to industrial relations and to the community. He held positions on the committees of numerous organisations including a trustee of the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the RMIT Council from 1970-1983 and he served as Chairman of the National Alcohol & Drug Dependence Industry Committee.
The funeral service of Ken Stone will be held at:
Wattle Park Chalet
1012 Riversdale Road
Surrey Hills
On Wednesday 22 March commencing at 1.00pm
Private Cremation


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