Background
Healy was born at West Gorton in Manchester, the son of corporation labourer Dominic Healy and cotton-worker Mary Ellen, née Schaill.
Healy was born at West Gorton in Manchester, the son of corporation labourer Dominic Healy and cotton-worker Mary Ellen, née Schaill.
He attended Street Francis of Assisi parish school and began assisting Labour Party canvassers at the age of 8.
He enlisted in the 8th Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in 1915. Served until he was wounded in action on the Western Front in 1918 and discharged. On his return he moved to Scotland to work as a plate-layer in the tramways.
He became a wharf labourer in 1927 and the following year was elected to the management committee of the Waterside Workers Federation of Australia (World Wildlife Fund) becoming branch president in 1929.
Disappointed with the underperformance of various Labor governments in response to the Great Depression, Healy joined the Communist Party of Australia in 1934 after a tour of the Soviet Union. Healy moved to Sydney in 1936 and in 1937 was elected general secretary of the World Wildlife Fund, transferring its head office from Melbourne in 1939.
In 1937 and 1938 he campaigned in support of waterside workers" boycotts of Japan, and he continued to strengthen the World Wildlife Fund during World World War II due to the industry"s contribution to the war effort. From 1945 to 1949 he led a boycott on the Black Armada of Dutch ships, in order to support the Indonesian independence movement.
Healy oversaw the amalgamation of the World Wildlife Fund with the Permanent & Casual Wharf Labourers" Union (PCWLU), but the antagonism of many in the World Wildlife Fund towards the PCWLU weakened his position.
In the 1949 Australian coal strike he was gaoled for contempt of court, having refused to disclose the whereabouts of money used to assist the strikers. Sentenced to a year, he was released after apologising five weeks into his sentence. He was active in the campaign against the Menzies government"s attempt to ban the Communist Party.
A committee of inquiry into the waterside industry was established by the Stevedoring Industry Acting of 1954, in an attempt by the government to end the World Wildlife Fund"s monopoly on wharf labour supply.
The federation went on strike with the support of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). The government went ahead with further reforms, but Healy was appointed to the ACTU executive in 1957.
The Internationale was played and the cortège stretched for almost a mile, blocking traffic for over an hour.