Kondelea (Della) Xenodohos (later known as Della Elliott) was born in Melbourne in 1917. After leaving school at the age of 14, she graduated from business college as a typist but found it difficult to gain regular paid work. She worked for a while with the International Labour Defence before gaining paid work with the Friends of the Soviet Union and the Militant Minority Movement.

In the 1940s Della was a delegate to the Labour Council of NSW and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and passionately pursued the issue of equal pay for women. This included working as a member of the Australian Women's Charter Committee alongside feminist activist Jessie Street.

Della and Laurie divorced in 1945 and she began working for the Waterside Workers Federation (WWF). Here she met Seaman's Union of Australia (SUA) leader Eliot V. Elliott. They were partners for the rest of their lives, eventually marrying in 1982.

Della began work at the SUA in 1955 as an administrator in the federal office, keeping meticulous records and facilitating a number of industrial campaigns, as well as editing the Seamen's Journal. Della eventually retired from the SUA in 1988, four years after Eliot's death.

Della was a strong supporter of the League for Democracy in Greece and the Union of Australian Women. She was also passionate about Indigenous issues and founded a scholarship at the University of Sydney for female Indigenous students.

Della Elliott died in Sydney on 2 October 2011 at the age of 94.

Eliot Valens Elliott was born Victor Emmanuel Elliott in New Zealand in 1902. He joined the Federated Seamen’s Union of Australasia (FSUA), later the Seamen’s Union of Australia (SUA) at the age of 17 and worked stoking boilers. He quickly earned a reputation as a tough delegate focused on campaigning for better working conditions. Elliott came to prominence during the 1935 seamen’s dispute as Assistant-Secretary of the Sydney strike committee and was elected Queensland Branch Secretary of the FSUA. By late 1924 his sailing records showed a change of name to Eliot V Elliott.

He became General Secretary of the FSUA in 1941 and in 1942 served as the seamen’s representative to the Maritime Industry Commission. He was also active in the international labour movement, sponsoring union recruitment and organisation among Australian and visiting seamen and promoting collective action by Chinese, Greek and Indonesian seamen. Although he led the SUA in their opposition to the Korean and Vietnam Wars, he generally relied on negotiation skills rather than engaging in costly strike action. He was a fierce opponent and defended the rights of SUA members in bitter battles with BHP and the Utah Development Co.

In 1949 Elliott joined the CPA’s central committee and was appointed vice-president of the maritime section of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), which had strong backing from the USSR. Although the Australian Council of Trade Unions withdrew from the WFTU that same year, the SUA didn’t disaffiliate until September 1952. Elliott maintained a long-term pro-Moscow view, which contributed to his removal from the central committee of the CPA in 1969, and him joining the new Socialist Party of Australia in 1971.

Elliott's long-time partner was prominent trade unionist and activist Kondelea Xenedohos (more commonly known as Della Elliott), whom he met while both were working for the WWF.

After 37 years as General Secretary, he retired from the SUA in 1978. He died in Sydney on 26 November 1984, survived by Della and his son.

The first seamen’s unions in Australia were formed in Melbourne (1872) and in Sydney (1874). In 1876 the Melbourne Seamen’s Union and the Sydney Seamen’s Union amalgamated and, by 1880, there were seamen’s unions in all the eastern and south-eastern colonies of Australia as well as in several ports in New Zealand. The Federated Seamen's Union of Australasia was registered in 1906 under the Commonwealth's industrial relations legislation and, in 1907, Head Office was transferred from Melbourne to Sydney. Although the Federated Seamen's Union of Australasia was deregistered in 1925, in 1930 many of its members went on to form the Seamen's Union of Australasia which, in 1943, became the Seamen’s Union of Australia. Despite amalgamations with the Marine Cooks, Bakers and Butchers' Association of Australia in 1983, the Federated Marine Stewards and Pantrymen’s Association of Australasia in 1988 and the Professional Divers' Association in 1991, it remained the Seamen's Union of Australia until 1993 when it amalgamated with the Waterside Workers' Federation to form the Maritime Union of Australia.