Copyright (c) 2009 University of Wollongong All rights reserved. http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity Recent documents in Illawarra Unity - Journal of the Illawarra Branch of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History en-us Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:39:17 PST 3600 http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol8/iss1/14 http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol8/iss1/14 Thu, 28 May 2009 20:27:27 PDT This analysis of American politics today is done through the lens and style of Raymond Chandler. And it is brilliant. Frank dissects the murky world of right wing politics with precision and a sharp wit. It is a better book than his much praised What's the Matter With Kansas?, ,partly because he paints on a bigger canvas and partly because this book does read like a thriller. It is a thriller about the corporate capture of Government in the United States of America. What's new about that, you might well think? Hasn't the ruling class always controlled Government? The point, however, is that until the Reagan years and beyond, some countervailing power, some Government autonomy existed. The liberal state from FDR up until Reagan did regulate and even govern, however inadequately, in the interests of common folk as well as the wealthy. This book is a lament to the fact that this liberal state has been smashed by conservatives-- the wrecking crew of the title--who shore up corporate power in the name of smaller government. Meanwhile, Government does not get smaller, the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned against takes over, the Fat Cats get fatter and Wall Street crows. Until, of course, it all come tumbling down. Frank's book finishes before this turn of events but the story he tells contains many warning signs. A. Ashbolt http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol8/iss1/13 http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol8/iss1/13 Thu, 28 May 2009 20:25:14 PDT ASIO: The Enemy Within is a combative book. Based on his research and experience, Michael Tubbs argues that the Australian Intelligence Security Organisation (ASIO) has no place in Australia's democracy. According to Tubbs ASIO has, since its formation in 1949, acted as a partisan political secret police force, ridden roughshod over civil liberties, engaged in illegal activities, all with the aim of creating and managing a docile, tranquil public. R. Cahill http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol8/iss1/12 http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol8/iss1/12 Thu, 28 May 2009 20:21:10 PDT According to Robert Reich, the Age of Supercapitalism was preceded in the United States by 'The Not Quite Golden Age', which began after the Second World War and lasted to about 1980. This was a period in which a few big firms dominated their markets, and trade union membership in the private sector was close to 40 per cent. The big firms and the big unions got on with one another; the result was a period in which consumers did not have a great deal of choice, but slowly increasing productivity ensured rising real wages, a growing willingness on the part of the private sector to provide health care, and a good deal of certainty about the future. The Government acted as a benign regulator. J. Hagan http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol8/iss1/11 http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol8/iss1/11 Thu, 28 May 2009 20:21:09 PDT In 1986 journalist Pete Thomas published the first volume of his proposed two-volume narrative history of the Queensland Colliery Employees Union, The Coalminers of Queensland. But he died before completing the task. With the support of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), Mining and Energy Division (Queensland District Branch), labour historian Greg Mallory has edited Volume 2 from Pete's unpublished manuscripts. R. Cahill http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol8/iss1/10 http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol8/iss1/10 Thu, 28 May 2009 20:16:56 PDT The first volume of this monumental work spans the years 1891-1905, the second 1906-1911, and the third 1912- 1917. Each volume is preceded by an Introduction, and each is comprehensively indexed. The publication of the three volumes was supported by the Sesquicentenary of Responsible Government in NSW Committee, established by the Carr Labor Government. J. Hagan http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol8/iss1/9 http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol8/iss1/9 Thu, 28 May 2009 20:16:55 PDT B. Roland http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol8/iss1/8 http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol8/iss1/8 Thu, 28 May 2009 20:13:21 PDT It was a powerful moment when, at the opening of a conference addressing memory and crisis, the keynote speaker (Julianne Schultz, author of Steel City Blues) was overcome with emotion when remembering parts of this cities turbulent past. It is important that we remember and acknowledge the pain and suffering that was created during the 1980s, and how for some, that pain and suffering continues to this day. Therefore, I would like to dedicate this paper to those who die, suffer and never recover, from the trauma of unemployment. In Wollongong during the 1980s unemployment skyrocketed as capitalist crisis brought about mass sackings and a huge rise in youth joblessness. As part of a significant fight-back by the labour movement in Wollongong against unemployment and its effects, unemployed people in the Illawarra formed the Wollongong Out of Workers' Union commonly known as WOW. This paper will focus on the fightback by Wollongong workers and the unemployed against mass sackings, joblessness, poverty and austerity in the early 1980s. As well it will look at the activities of WOW and the historical processes of dispossession that the Union struggled against. N. Southall http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol8/iss1/7 http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol8/iss1/7 Thu, 28 May 2009 20:10:22 PDT The concept of community unionism is built on the idea that union connection to the community builds successful campaigns and strengthens unions. This paper investigates how and when this might occur, focusing first on achieving a concrete definition of community, second by establishing a framework for understanding the contours of successful community unionism and finally exploring this framework through a comparison of two case studies of community unionism from Australia and Canada. The term community has entered union discourse as union density and power, particularly in the industrialised world, has diminished. While work between unions and community organisations is not new, theoretical interest in these relationships has surged in the last 15 years (Brecher and Costello 1990a; Frege, Heery et al. 2004; Reynolds 2004). Yet the scholarship on coalitions has some limitations, often focusing on best practice case studies and assuming rather than proving if and how coalitions are a source of power for unions (Tattersall 2005). A. Tattersall http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol8/iss1/6 http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol8/iss1/6 Thu, 28 May 2009 19:16:17 PDT In the Spring and Summer, 1964, issues of the American new left journal Studies on the Left, political economist James O'Connor grappled with the concept of community unions.1 He argued that increasingly the social basis of working class organizations was in the community. Debate about the nature and efficacy of what could be called community unionism was a feature of the new left's mid-life in the 1960s. The overall intellectual context in which this debate occurred was one of disillusionment with traditional leftist dogmas and pieties. The political context was one reminiscent of the Russian Narodnik movement of the nineteenth century. Thousands of students had worked and were working amongst the black and poor in a variety of projects and, specifically, in the mid 1960s around three hundred students from the organization Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) immersed themselves in northern working class communities. Organising the poor was the aim of SDS's Economic Research and Action Project (ERAP). Michael Harrington's 1963 book The Other America had placed poverty on the agenda but the student new left was itself making it part of a larger question--that of historic agency. A. Ashbolt http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol8/iss1/5 http://ro.uow.edu.au/unity/vol8/iss1/5 Thu, 28 May 2009 19:12:34 PDT One hundred and thirty years ago in the Illawarra, mineworkers established an autonomous district union which by 1911 numbered nearly 4,000 members working in 22 mines along the escarpment. The same generation of workers established one of the first attempts in Australia to organise working people including but beyond their workplaces, at the community level, by forming the Illawarra District Council of the Australian Labour Federation in 1896, which tried to combine industrial and political activities in one organisation in the one community.1 The history of unions in regional Australia is the story of their existence in the community.1 Historians and sociologists have captured some of this and in this paper, in seeking to answer the question 'what do unions do that make them successful parts of their communities?--I have reviewed the now quite substantial literature on regional unionism covering Broken Hill, Bulli, Lithgow, Newcastle, the Pilbara, Port Kembla, Wagga Wagga, Wollongong and Wonthaggi. M. Donaldson