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Heat stress, work and climate change
As part of a UTS research team, I have released a new report with the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work, looking at the impacts of heat stress on workers in Australia. Prepared by UTS researchers as part of the Too Hot to Work Project, the report outlines...
The bridge that fell: Melbourne’s West Gate 50 years on
For the 50th anniversary of the West Gate Bridge Disaster — on 15 October 2020 — my collaborator Sarah Gregson and I worked with comics-journalist and cartoonist Sam Wallman, and writer and editor Jacinda Woodhead. A piece based on our research and the story of the...
Debating the Accord, the union and neoliberalism
The May issue of the journal Labour History carried a roundtable discussion of my book How Labour Built Neoliberalism. The special section 'Assessing the Accord and Labour’s Role in Neoliberalism' (paywalled) features contributions from Frank Bongiorno (ANU), Ian...
Will freezing nurses and midwives’ wages really help the economy?
This article was originally written for the members of the NSW Nurses & Midwives Association, and published in The Lamp on May 25, 2020. Not only is it pretty nasty to suggest a freeze to the wages of nurses, midwives and other healthcare workers while they are on...
The false promise of a national universities deal
By Elizabeth Humphrys and Amy Thomas Union members in the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) are in the midst of a turbulent debate over a proposed national Jobs Protection Framework (JPF). Universities have been excluded from the JobKeeper scheme just as...
Jack Mundey & the Green Bans
There have been a range of tributes to Jack Mundey since he died last Sunday night, but I wanted to post a few here. I spoke to James Purtill's from TripleJ/ABC The Hack , and I really liked his piece as it thinks through the legacy of the Green Bans and Mundey's role...
Work, unions and the climate crisis
Last week Freya Newman, Natasha Heenan and I had an opinion piece published by the ABC on the bushfire smoke impact on workers in Sydney and Canberra. We looked at the impact of the climate crisis on workers, and what collective response unions might lead. You can...
2019 Election: From Anti-politics to a Green New Deal?
I participated in a really enjoyable interview with Teishan Ahearne for Earth Matters (3CR and syndicated nationally on community radio) on the recent Australian election. We talked anti-politics, climate action, Adani and Western Sydney. We asked what way forward in...