If working class people had real power, what would society look like? If you live in Sydney, you don’t have to look far to find an answer. If you’ve ever seen the Opera House, you’ve seen a building constructed under workers’ control. If you’ve ever strolled through the Rocks, you’ve walked through a historic area that union militants saved from demolition. And the giant Centennial Park, the lungs of inner Sydney, would have been turned into a gigantic, concrete-covered sports precinct if not for working-class action.
In the early 1970s the Builders Labourers Federation (BLF) was the core of an impressive movement that gave us a glimpse of what workers’ power looks like. They used their considerable industrial muscle for the benefit of the working class, the poor and oppressed groups. The famous BLF ‘green bans’ preserved dozens of working class areas and historic buildings, ranging from Aboriginal housing in Redfern to historic National Trust-listed mansions. These green bans became a world-famous example of how workers’ action could preserve the environment.
The politics and militancy of the NSW BLF represent one of the high points of working class struggle in this country. Such high points don’t come out of nowhere. It took years of patient rank-and-file organising, especially by Communist Party and other militants, all through the 1950s, for militants to win control of the previously corrupt union. The BLF had to build from the bottom up, from an itinerant, unskilled workforce initially unfamiliar with even the basics of unionism.
This session will unpack the making of one of the most militant and radical unions in Australian history, and discuss lessons its legacy has for rebuilding workers power today.