"Dare
to Struggle, Dare to Win!" If one phrase can
sum up the militant Builders Labourers Federation
it was this. Because they believed this, and backed
it with action on the job - the courts and governments
of the 1980s declared the BLF had to go.
Conservative
governments took the first steps, but it was Labor
- backed by leading members of the ACTU and union
movement - which finished the job. Subject to a Royal
Commission, accusations of corruption against union
secretary Norm Gallagher, trials, Arbitration Commission
hearings and coordinated federal and state legislation
the BLF was under siege for years. Then in 1986 the
full force of governments and their police fell on
the union when it was formally deregistered.
But
this is not a story of defeat and despair. It is a
story of resistance, much of it told in the words
of the most important actors in this drama - rank
and file workers. Builders Labourers and their supporters
in other unions and the community waged a long struggle
for union rights and militancy that has important
lessons for today.
While
highlighting the rank and file struggle, Liz Ross
pulls together all the threads in this complex story
and provides a left-wing analysis of the role of the
employers, ALP and union leaders, and the historic
ALP-ACTU Accord.
Here
is the full story for the first time. The book is
meticulously researched, with extensive use of archives,
original union material and fify-seven interviews
with participants. The author was also directly involved
in many of the events she describes.
An
inevitably controversial look at the history of the
struggles on the Builders Labourers Federation and the
twenty year campaign to smash Australia's most militant
union.
