I’m Not Just A Labourer, I’m A Bloody BL
Written By: Louie Gibson
So keep your powder dry – hold your head up high
It’s class to class and face to face; our limit is the sky
We’ve got a fighting history and we never will be cowed
A builders’ labourer is a name to make a man feel proud!
On the night of Mothers Day, the 10th of May 2020, a giant of the Australian trade union movement left us. Jack Mundey the leader of the NSW Builders Labourers Federation from 1968-1975 where under his leadership, we saw the BLF union in NSW transform into a true radical working class movement. Solidarity was transformed from a buzzword at union meetings and marches into direct action against the various issues that the working class was facing. Housing development, workplace safety, pay rises and benefits, gender and sexual discrimination and workplace democracy were put at the forefront of the BLF’s focus under a class conscious leadership.
Mundey The Man
Born in May 1929 in the little town of Malanda 100 kms west of Cairns, they lived in poor conditions on a dairy farm when at the young age of six years old, his mother abruptly passed away. This shaped his life heavily, his family of five became split up and he spent much of his childhood thereafter with his father, which he later remarked played an influence on his ethics and later politics.
“Political education was vital and put to the forefront within union meetings with the union publishing its own pamphlets”
In 1951 Jack Mundey came to Sydney at the young age of 19, surprisingly to play professional football at the Parramatta Eels under Vic Hey for three years. Working as a metalworker and later a builder’s labourer, he first joined the Federated Ironworkers’ Association and then the Builders Labourers Federation, where he became active as a member. At the BLF, Mundey met an array of people he couldn’t have dreamed of in his small hometown of Malanda, other builders labourers who spoke of a world in which he held dear from a young age. Characters like Ray O’Shannassy and others mentored and guided Mundey leading him to join the Communist Party of Australia in 1957.
“Much of the back breaking jobs in the construction industry are done by those who bosses can feel they can exploit the most”
The Builders Labourers Federation in those days was not what we know it now to be, at the time of Mundey joining, the union was run by a right wing faction that actively collaborated with bosses and companies. Corruption, incompetence and violence was known to be rife within the union, but many class conscious members within the national organisation, many of whom Communist Party members aimed to overturn that leadership with success in 1968. Like many unions led by communists, the union was transformed taking along with it its membership. Political education was vital and put to the forefront within union meetings with the union publishing its own pamphlets and literature to educate its membership.
Fly the Red Flag
The BLF was a different union, with a whole lot of reasons. Much like today, much of the back breaking jobs in the construction industry are done by those who bosses can feel they can exploit the most. Jobs like steelfixing, concreting and formwork were done by the outcasts of capitalist society. The newly migrated from war torn countries, migrants coming to Australia seeking a better life, my own experience is a high school dropout with no qualifications to my name. So on you go, trying to get whatever you can to get by, while the sparkies and plumbers are still known to show up in nice new utes, we show up in our battered commodores.
“We’re just labourers, we weren’t like the others apparently, we never finished an apprenticeship and got a trade like them. The BLF aimed at changing that”
Under the new leadership of Joe Owens, Bob Pringle and Jack Mundey, builders labourers and many of the supposed unqualified construction workers, were taught that they weren’t just builders labourers. The common retort given to us on construction sites til this day when us labourers demand better wages and conditions is that “we’re just labourers”. We weren’t like the others apparently. We never finished an apprenticeship and got a trade like them. The BLF aimed at changing that, going on widespread strikes during a construction boom in NSW in the 1970s with historic battles and victories. Well known are the Green Bans they imposed however there were many more accomplishments by the BLF. As dedicated as they were, the improved conditions and wages that were won were due to the subpar treatment many in the construction industry faced and still face now.
“Not only did Mundey’s leadership teach myself and many other unionists how to successfully fight for better wages and safety, but also that we had a role to play in society”
The BLF were not perfect, nothing ever is, but its because they were different that they left a lasting impression on generations of workers in Australia. The BLF taught me that being a construction worker, better yet being a labourer meant that I too had a say in my society. In my wages, in the community I lived in and how I should act, with my head held high in pride of my class, the working class. In total 47 Green Bans were slapped on sites by the BLF, stopping work themselves and setting up pickets to keep scabs out so the heritage or environment of our communities were met with the workers demands. Workers unanimously voted to walk off the Macquarie Uni construction site in 1973 when a student was expelled for being homosexual, forcing the university’s administration to reverse the decision.
Days like today will never be forgotten, our struggles are the same. The BLF in the 70s had to deal with workers being hired only on an hourly rate with no stability, today’s fight of casualisation is the same. Vale Comrade Mundey, for the struggle continues!