BY JACKIE LYNCH

MELBOURNE — A joint meeting to explore the links between unionists and environmentalists was held on May 22. Jack Mundey, former NSW Builders Labourers Federation leader and environmental activist, addressed 70 people who were packed into the Electrical Trades Union-owned Comrades Bar.

Dean Mighell, state secretary of the ETU, who recently made the controversial decision to quit the ALP and join the Greens, introduced the night. Mighell said: “What we want to talk about tonight are the fantastic opportunities that await workers out of renewable energy.”

Mundey gave a fascinating account of the BLF’s development into a union that played a premier role in the cutting edge political disputes of recent history. Arguing that unions should “go beyond their hip pocket nerve”, he discussed union involvement in campaigns against the Vietnam War, South African apartheid, women’s oppression and many others.

Mundey did not hide his old Communist Party affiliations. He said, “Can we win full environmental justice under capitalism? I believe capitalism will always remain rapacious and profit oriented.”

He finished by noting that Victoria is the state within which there is the greatest potential for unions, community and environmental activists to campaign together. The Victorian Greens, he argued, are fortunate to have the ETU and to a lesser extent the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union.

From Green Left Weekly, May 29, 2002.
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