not besmirch the bank's public standing; and were banned from attending public meetings, participating in political campaigns, or from seeking public office. Also militating against their effectiveness was the fact that the ABOA and AISF were actually just two of a number of state-based staff associations which emerged in the finance sector during this period. These various organisations were not necessarily inclined to act co-operatively, or even to view one another as natural allies in the interests of their respective memberships. In some cases, it was not until the 1960s that the last of these state-based organisations agreed to merge with their federally based rivals. This division of membership naturally ensured that the overall coverage of the ABOA and AISF remained relatively small for many years; and those who did join frequently continued in the habits of difference and subservience into which they had been inculcated by the prevailing industry culture. However, by the late 1950s, ABOA and the AISF were members of the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations (ACSPA), an umbrella organisation that continuously co-operated with the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) on basic wages, and margins cases; and, in particular, ABOA's leadership sought close ties with the rest of the union movement. Pre-WWII Despite the many obstacles by which both the AISF and the ABOA were confronted, the very fact of their formation prompted the banks to raise employee salaries in 1919 and 1920. In 1921, insurance employers agreed to a log of claims submitted by the AISF, thus establishing the first ever national standard for employment conditions in that industry. These improvements, and the formation of the staff organisations themselves, were fiercely resented by banking and insurance employers, who accordingly adopted a number of aggressive tactics ranging from preferential treatment of non-unionists to outright intimidation to blunt the AISF's and the ABOA's effectiveness. The Great Depression of 1930–39 was a period of extreme difficulty for both unions. The drastically declining national economy created an atmosphere of fear and apprehension, in which the thought of industrial action was abhorrent and the terror of unemployment conspired to produce a subservient workforce. In this environment, finance employers went on the offensive, cutting jobs and, in one instance, serving up a pay cut of 20% to insurance employees. Unsurprisingly, the unions' membership went into steep decline, plunging from 1281 in 1931 to 858 in 1937. Despite these straitened