We’re back in the studio for our second episode and it’s all about worker power. 

This week, we learn about this exceptional and hopeful moment in the history of union organising in Australia known as the Green Bans, with writer, illustrator and union activist Sam Wallman (https://www.instagram.com/ourmembersbeunlimited/) and lecturer in international political economy from the University of New South Wales, Dr Sophie Cotton 

“What is the good of fighting to improve wages and conditions if we are going to choke to death in polluted and planless cities? We are fighting for a shorter working week. If we get it, we still have to live in these cities

Yes, we want to build. However, we prefer to build urgently required hospitals, schools, other public utilities, high-quality flats, units and houses, provided they are designed with adequate concern for the environment, than to build ugly unimaginative architecturally bankrupt blocks of concrete and glass offices.”

Those are the words of Jack Mundy - secretary of the NSW Builders' Labourers Federation, and one of the leaders of the Green Bans. 

In the Green Bans, ordinary workers and local residents groups joined forces to refuse work on construction projects that threatened the environment, affordable housing, public open spaces and heritage, and were successful in saving vital urban spaces from demolition. We hear what made this moment special, and use it to look at why workers' power is so important not only to workplace and industrial issues, but to enacting transformative change over broader society.

We also discuss what has changed in industrial relations in Australia since the 1970s and 80s, how to deal with being apart of a flawed trade union, what the relationship ought to be  between workers movements and political parties - and Max wonders if Jack Mundy was the true first, unofficial leader of the Australian Greens?

Share your thoughts and comments on this podcast on YouTube or by emailing us at praxispod@greeninstitute.org.au

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Check out Sam’s book ‘Our Members Be Unlimited: A Comic About Workers & Their Unions’ at https://www.samwallman.com/store/p/our-members-be-unlimited-book and follow 

Sam and Sophie’s recommendations:

• Film: Rocking the Foundations by Pat Fiske (https://www.roninfilms.com.au/feature/474/rocking-foundations.html)
• “Green Bans, Red Unions” by Verity Bergman & Meredith Bergman (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1592101.Green_Bans_Red_Union)
• “How Labour Built Neoliberalism” by Elizabeth Humphrys (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40635889-how-labour-built-neoliberalism)

Praxis is hosted by Max Chandler-Mather and Bec Sparks, produced by The Green Institute, James Cummins and Michael Griffin.