After working in the Belfast Ropeworks he joined the British Army for three years and then became an apprentice blacksmith in the Harland & wolf shipyards and joined the Independent Labour Party in Belfast and later became assistant secretary of the Associated Blacksmiths' Society and then from 1921 to 1925 the full time organiser.
To make matters worse, the Belfast Poor Law Union, the last resort of the destitute applied its rules on who qualified to receive assistance very harshly.
On one occasion in June 1926 unemployed men protested outside a meeting of the Guardians of the Belfast Poor Law Union.
[5] Historian Tim Pat Coogan remarks of the time that, despite the prevailing conditions, "the Unionist ascendency was so secure that it could blithely go ahead with measures such as cutting unemployment benefits while lavishing expenditure on the new parliament building, which was opened in 1932".
Beattie, incensed, seized the mace and shouted that his motion to bring "to your notice the serious position of the unemployment in Northern Ireland" had been rejected.
Bardon reports that ignoring the Speaker's pleas for order, Beattie continued shouting "I am going to put this out of action....The House indulged in hypocrisy while there are starving thousands outside."
[8] On 30 April 1945, Beattie was punched in the Stormont Parliament by the Government Minister and former NILP MP, Harry Midgley.
Beattie, who had accepted money from a fund established by the Anti-Partition League, "wore a steel helmet while campaigning in east Belfast".