Jean Young, Kath Williams and the Fight for Equal Pay
Read an excerpt from the book Knocking The Top Off: A People’s History of Alcohol in Australia about the fight for equal pay.
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Unions
How to Organise about Climate Related Workplace Health and Safety Issues
Resources produced and compiled by the Australian Services Union for workers organising around climate change and extreme weather related workplace health & safety.
Labor Power and Strategy: How to Read Womack
The 2023 book Labour Power and Strategy, edited by Peter Olney and Glenn Perušek, is centred around a lengthy interview with labour organiser and historian John Womack Jr in which he argues for the importance of ‘strategic workplace organising’
Green Bans Timeline: 1971-74
A timeline of the Green Bans implemented by NSW Builders Labourers Federation (BLF) in the early 1970s.
Every Worker in Australia: A Race Class Narrative
Introduction This guide offers a blueprint for building and sustaining the collective power needed for workplace and electoral wins. However, just like an architectural blueprint, lines on a page on their own do nothing. It is up to organizers, activists and elected leaders to take the guidance herein and apply it when and however you […]
Revolution Is For Us: Gay Liberation, Unions and the Left in the 1970s
Two pivotal events that set the platform for contemporary campaigning by Australian LGBTQI+ movements: union bans and 1978 Mardi Gras protest.
Leave it in the Ground: Union Bans and Uranium Exports in the 1970s
Read about the history of opposition to uranium mining in Australia in the 1970s and early 1980s regarding union bans and uranium exports.
Against Fascism and War: Pig Iron Bob and the Dalfram Dispute, Port Kembla 1938
The 1938 Dalfram dispute involved workers at Port Kembla in Australia striking and refusing to load iron on a ship bound for Japan in 1938.
How Workers Defeated Anti-Strike Laws in the 1970s
Read an excerpt from the book, Without Bosses: Radical Trade Unionism in the 1970s, about workers retaining the right to strike.
Defending Unionism: The Weipa Dispute, 1995
Learn how workers in Weipa forced a mining company to accommodate collective bargaining by combining strike action and a port blockade.
Beer Strikes: A History of Hotel Boycotts in Australia, 1900-1920
Watch this video presentation about beer strikes and the history of hotel / pub boycotts in Australia in the early 1900s.
The 1972 Sydney Opera House Work-In
Learn about the Sydney Opera House ‘work-in’ carried out by construction workers who expelled management & continued work under workers’ control.
The Nymboida Coal Mine Takeover, NSW, 1975–1979
How workers at the Nymboida coal mine in NSW resisted mass sackings by taking over and running the mine themselves in 1975. firstly through an occupation and then via union ownership.
Lines of Resistance: What can the Old Left offer today’s creatives?
Lines of Resistance: A Symposium on Media, Arts & Activism that profiles research on the role of media and visual arts in activist movements.
Local Power: Shifting Power at the Local Level – Candidate School
Case study of organising at a local level, Victorian Trades Hall Council’s Candidate School, focused on changing who gets elected to local office.
Australians general strike for right to unionize, Brisbane, Australia, 1912
Brisbane unionists organised a general strike in 1912 to protect and enhance the rights of tramways workers to organise.
Australians campaign against nuclear power and uranium mining, 1974-1988
Street marches and trade union action typified Australian resistance to the building of nuclear reactors and uranium mining and export.
Noonkanbah 1979: When Unionists Stood up for Aboriginal Rights
The Noonkanbah dispute was an important chapter in both the struggle for Australian Aboriginal rights and union solidarity in the 1970s-80s.
Developing Strategic Campaigns: An ITF Manual for Trade Union Activists, Educators and Organisers
This manual will help workers to identify clear campaign goals and objectives, develop strategies and tactics, and create unifying public messages and timelines for campaigns.
Stories of Unemployed Activism from Radical Melbourne: 1906-1982
Introduction Four stories about actions – demonstrations, pickets, eviction resistance and occupations – that the unemployed people of Melbourne carried out from 1906 to 1982. These stories come from the Radical Melbourne 1 & 2 books by Jeff and Jill Sparrow, published by Vulgar Press in 2001 and 2004. The books feature dozens of stories […]