Solidarity and Political Action - Fighting for a Better World

While the union's core responsibilities are clearly the wages, working conditions and safety of building workers - our work doesn't end there. For well over 100 years the building unions - now combined together in the CFMEU - have felt that it was the union's duty to both show a political lead and to help in the broader struggle for a better world.

As issues arise on an almost daily basis, there are literally tens of thousands of examples of building unions lending a hand to combat injustice. This has led to criticism sometimes, as we have often supported causes for years before they've become fashionable.

Some examples of the building unions' proud record are:

• Support for other workers - both in Australia and internationally - going back at least to the Maritime Dispute of the 1890s
  
• Support for peace movement: for example, we opposed Australian involvement in the Vietnam war and French Nuclear Testing in the Pacific from early 1960s
  
• Support for the Aboriginal cause: including the Pilbara stockman's strike of the 1940s, the Gurindji struggle of the 1960s, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy and the reconciliation process of the present day
  
• Opposed racism generally: including active support for migrant workers and their families and communities, opposition to apartheid in South Africa from the early 1960s
  
• Support for liberation movements against oppressive governments in East Timor, Chile and much of the so-called Third World
  
• Support for political prisoners around the world
  
• Environmental issues including the world-famous Green Ban movement beginning in the 1970s
  
• Support for student and community groups across the whole spectrum of social issues including education, health, welfare and housing

Building workers and their union officials have, from the earliest days, been willing to face arrest for their beliefs. During the great strikes of the 1890s, John Diaz who later became secretary of the Victorian Carpenters Union, was arrested by the police while supporting striking shearers and chained to a log.

The union continues to take up similar fights today.

United we bargain - Divided we beg.

Contact the National Office, Construction Division at:
Level 12, 276 Pitt Street, Sydney, NSW 2000
Ph: 02 8524 5800
Fax: 02 8524 5801
Email: queries@fed.cfmeu.asn.au

Postal address: PO Box Q235, Queen Victoria Building Post Office, Sydney NSW 1230.