For several years in the mid-1900s, Stubbs worked in Kalgoorlie and represented the tailors union on the Eastern Goldfields Trades and Labor Council. In due course he served as president of that Council.David Black and Geoffrey Bolton, Biographical Register of Members of Parliament, Vol 1, 1870–1930 After returning to Perth in about 1907, Stubbs became a prominent leader of the labour movement. He represented the Perth Tailors and Tailoresses Union at various labour conferences and congresses and, by 1911, the year the Trades Hall was opened in Perth, he had become the president of the Metropolitan Council of the Australian Labour Federation.Cyclopedia of Western Australians (1912), Vol 1, Ed. J. S. Battye.
