Meredith Burgmann - Green Bans, Red Union: The Saving of a City

GREEN BANS
RED UNION

HON DR MEREDITH BURGMANN was President of the Legislative Council of NSW (Labor). She was previously a Senior Lecturer in Politics at Macquarie University and first woman President of the Academics Union in NSW (now NTEU). She was actively involved in the green ban movement and was arrested defending the Victoria Street ban. She has written extensively on industrial relations and womens issues and published books on misogyny and ASIO.

DR VERITY BURGMANN is Adjunct Professor of Political Science in the School of Social Sciences at Monash University and Director of the Roger Coates Labour History Project at www.reasoninrevolt.net.au. She is the author of numerous studies of labour and social movements, including In Our Time (1985), Power and Protest (1993), Revolutionary Industrial Unionism (1995), Power, Profit and Protest (2003), Climate Politics and the Climate Movement (2012) and Globalization and Labour in the Twenty-First Century (2016).

GREEN BANS
RED UNION

THE SAVING OF A CITY

MEREDITH BURGMANN & VERITY BURGMANN

A NewSouth book

Published by

NewSouth Publishing

University of New South Wales Press Ltd

University of New South Wales

Sydney NSW 2052

AUSTRALIA

newsouthpublishing.com

Meredith Burgmann and Verity Burgmann 2017

First edition published 1998. Second edition published 2017.

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publisher.

National Library of Australia

Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Creator: Burgmann, Meredith, 1947 author.

Title: Green bans, red union: The saving of a city / Meredith Burgmann and Verity Burgmann.

Edition: 2nd edition.

ISBN: 9781742235400 (paperback)

9781742242644 (ebook)

9781742248103 (epdf)

Subjects: Green Bans History. Builders Labourers Federation NSW Branch History. Building workers Trade unions New South Wales History. Environmental activism New South Wales Resident action.

Other Creators/Contributors: Burgmann, Verity, author.

Design Josephine Pajor-Markus

Cover images BLF Green Ban demonstration, Sydney 1973; Sydney skyline at dusk. Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0.

All reasonable efforts were taken to obtain permission to use copyright material reproduced in this book, but in some cases copyright could not be traced. The author welcomes information in this regard.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

NSWBLF and residents blockade Playfair Street, The Rocks 6

Builders labourers marching, October 1973 8

Mick McNamara with Arthur Calwell, 1966 28

NSWBLF Officials and organisers outside Sydneys Central Court in 1974 32

The Green Ban float, May Day 1975 39

Protest outside Gallaghers office, November 1973 47

ABLF Federal Executive, 1970 69

Margins strike march, 1970 83

The Siege of Shirley Street, May 1970 85

Vigilantes during 1970 margins strike 92

Voting to remain on strike during accident pay dispute, May 1971 112

Hogans shower, Newcastle, during amenities campaign, October 1972 118

Tom Hogan at anti-conscription rally, July 1972 129

Bob Pringle and Johnny Phillips fined for anti-Springbok activity, August 1972 132 Workplace meeting in support of Gurindji land rights claim, 1967 135 Advertising the 1972 black moratorium from a crane 137

International Womens Day march, 1974 153

A protest in support of Dr Ros Harrison, June 1974 155

Janne Reed and Brian Rix during crane occupation, 1974 159

Battlers for Kellys Bush secretariat 170

Green Bans activists demonstrating in support of the Mundey/Owens/Pringle leadership 171

Residents inspect plans for Woolloomooloo 202

Gough Whitlam announcing funds to save Woolloomooloo, June 1975 206 Protesters at Mick Fowlers house, January 1974 213

Cartoon by George Molnar 230

Builders labourers preventing scabs breaking The Rocks green ban, 1973 257

Jack Mundey arrested, October 1973 259

Joe Owens at The Siege of Victoria Street, January 1974 263

Mick Fowler at anti-Gallagher rally, October 1974 270

The Glebe Society opposes the Northwestern Expressway, 1972 289

Green Ban Supporters rally, March 1975 292

ABBREVIATIONS

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO THE 1998 EDITION

W hen federal BLF Intervention against its New South Wales branch abruptly ended the green bans period of the NSWBLF in 1975, Meredith ended up with much of the unions archival material in her sitting room, for the NSWBLF officials had had to vacate their Trades Hall office within 24 hours. She had been embroiled politically and socially with the union for five years and had cried along with the 2000 others at the final Town Hall meeting, which she tape-recorded. As an academic in the Politics Department at Macquarie University, Professor Don Aitkin persuaded her she was in a unique position to write a doctoral thesis on an exciting and important subject. Not only did she have in her possession most of the unions archives, she had lived through the experience as one of their many frenetically active supporters. Thus much of this book is drawn from Merediths PhD thesis (completed in 1981), A new concept of unionism: the New South Wales Builders Labourers Federation 19701974. This thesis should be consulted by any person interested in a more detailed organisational and industrial history of the union, for this book greatly condenses the thesis in order to provide a considerable amount of new material on the wider political activities of the union, especially the green bans.