North Coast Labour History Collective

This is the new blogsite for the New South Wales North Coast Labour History Collective.

Labour history in this part of Australia is fast being run over by government, papered over by developers, and left behind when people move on, often when their jobs have been deleted by the actions of those governments and developers.

But since the early days of New South Wales this has been an important area for logging, rail, agriculture, fishing, industries that supported extended rural and town communities, including trade union community. Rail was wiped out in 2003 in a colluson between government and road transport interest that prioritised heavy vehicle transport, and road/air travel, over rail. Logging pretty much nearly destroyed swathes of this beautiful environment. Fishing continues. The newspapers that spoke to and for the region have been decimated though we still, proudly, retain vital independent press. Community? well, up here it just keeps on reforming, even generating new and smaller industries. But destruction of labour sites, dispersal of jobs and the 11 years of Howard politics has undercut both trade unions and the industrial networks already weakened by the disappearance of trades and labour councils as the region's profile changed.

In view of all of this the aims of the collective are a) to create links for recording the labour history of the north coast and b) given that distance makes it difficult to set up in face meetings and seminars, to provide a forum for history and labour communities to share debate, concerns, and knowledge, and to generate links between historians and unionists, including new unionists, that will feed into labour identity in the region.

Several founding members of North Coast LH are members of the ASSLH, the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History and many also are, or have been, union and political activists. We have informal connections with other East Coast LH Societies, including in Brisbane, and will establish on-line links with local unions through the recently re-generated Northern Rivers Union Network. This means that while our focus is on this area's labour history, our input will go wider.

Welcoming your comments. rw, for the collective.