Workers Power

Workers Power

By 4ZZZSociety & Culture
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Workers Power episodes

  • The working class origins of Rugby League

    This week we talk to Greg from the Brisbane Labour History Association about the working class origins of Rugby League and how class struggle has shaped the sport over the years.

    • Links to what we talked about
    • Aboriginal Tent Embassy Caretaker counters Uluru Statement
    • Rio Tinto sits down with Traditional Owners
    • New South Wales public sector workers to strike
    • Ipswich city council workers take action
    • NSW nurses reject bad offer
    • Seattle government building vandalised in response to sweeps of homeless camps
      • 1 hr 7 min
    • Profit off poverty & A history of the early Brisbane punk scene part 2

      This week we talk to Workers Power regular Jayden from the Anti-Poverty Network about the campaign against the cashless welfare card. In the second hour we have a follow up interview with Virginia from the Brisbane Labour History Association about the history of the punk scene in Brisbane, with a focus on the late Chris Bailey of The Saints.

      Interviews start at 6:55 and 32:18

      Outro song: Econ Sopro by Worker & Parasite

      1 hr 2 min
    • May Day Special!

      We bring you on the ground at the Labour Day march this year as we listen to the union chants and talk to unionists and activists about Labour day and the labour movement. I sure hope you like bagpipes.

      Outro Song: Solidarity Forever - Phil Monsour

      1 hr 20 min
    • Dare to Struggle Film Festival

      On this week's episode Bill and Dan chat with Linn from Dare To Struggle Film Festival. They are also met with a connundrum for this week's Scallywag.

      Interview starts at 17:19

      41 min
    • How environmentalists and unions fought to protect the reef

      This week we talk to Alison from the Brisbane Labour History Association about the fight in the 70s to protect the Great Barrier Reef from mining. This fight was an early example of solidarity between environmental groups and unions, as well as unions taking industrial action to protect the environment.

      Interview begins at 7:29

      1 hr 5 min
    • Women fighting back - the history of the PMG telephonist's union

      This week we talk to Jeff Rickertt from the Brisbane Labour History Association. In the leadup to International Working Women's Day we talked about the campaigns of the telephonists' union in the 1970s and 80s. Telephonists were the workers, mostly women, who operated the manual telephone exchanges across Australia for the Postmaster General's Department (PMG), the largest of all Commonwealth departments in its day. In the 1980s the telecommunications division of PMG became Telecom and was then privatised and renamed Telstra.

      Until their jobs were destroyed by automation, the telephonists comprised one of the largest groups of women workers in Australia, and in the 1970s and early 1980s they and their union, the Australian Telephone and Phonogram Officers Association, emerged as one of the most militant public service unions in the country. Here in Meanjin they waged some truly amazing battles that really rattled the bosses.

      Interview begins at 34:40

      • Links to what we talked about
      • Floods see Indigenous community evacuated, Koori Mail cut off
      • Calls for tougher COVID safety measures after WA prison riot
      • NSW Government drops its case in Fair Work Commission after union demands to see ‘risk assessment’
      • Unis attempt to pay casuals with gift cards
        • 1 hr 23 min

      About Workers Power

      From the publisher's feed

      Join the Workers Power team on 4ZZZ 102.1FM in Meanjin/Brisbane as they discuss worker's issues and struggles.