Carmichael and Baird equals "Formidable"
In this short memoir Tony Evans reflects on Laurie Carmichael and Jim Baird. Baird and Carmichael worked closely and with other officials of the union to develop the research and bargaining strategy that would be presented to members. The research usually included information collected from shop steward meetings and surveys.
CLICK HERE
Tony Evans is a veteran union activist, now retired, and a South Australian. Tony was (is) a multi-union and multi-industry union "mindful militant". Laurie Carmichael pushed him into union roles that involved "active research". He wanted to and was required to work with union delegates and members to produce information that could be used in consultations and confrontations with governments and employers about jobs in the manufacturing industry.
Technological Change - Report, 1980
Report to the AMWSU 1980 National Conference
By Laurie Carmichael
Published by the AMWSU, authorised by the 1980 National Conference
CLICK HERE to read the Report
Introduction – Don Sutherland
The AMWSU National Conference decision to endorse the report and reproduce it in this pamphlet form made sure that its members were learning more than the general community about the impact of the computer revolution on their daily lives and on society as a whole.
The contents reveal Laurie Carmichael’s widespread reading on the subject and an unerring capacity to link technological change to its impact on daily lives, changes in the workplace, and the broader national and international political economy.
Carmichael delivered the report orally to the National Conference of union delegates – most of whom being shop stewards (union delegates) and union organisers and officials who had left secondary school at around their fifteenth birthdays. The plain language does not at any time dumb down the content and pays full respect to the Conference’s ability to deal with the material.
The pamphlet was read and discussed in shop stewards training courses at the AMWSU and also in the Trade Union Training Authority.
There is no defeatism and no resignation. He argues for why and how workers must organise to take control of the technology.
Carmichael would work on this right through to his retirement, especially in the significance of award restructuring and new vocational education that would enable.
Technological Change - Report, 1980
Report to the AMWSU 1980 National Conference
By Laurie Carmichael
Published by the AMWSU, authorised by the 1980 National Conference
CLICK HERE to read the Report
Introduction – Don Sutherland
The AMWSU National Conference decision to endorse the report and reproduce it in this pamphlet form made sure that its members were learning more than the general community about the impact of the computer revolution on their daily lives and on society as a whole.
The contents reveal Laurie Carmichael’s widespread reading on the subject and an unerring capacity to link technological change to its impact on daily lives, changes in the workplace, and the broader national and international political economy.
Carmichael delivered the report orally to the National Conference of union delegates – most of whom being shop stewards (union delegates) and union organisers and officials who had left secondary school at around their fifteenth birthdays. The plain language does not at any time dumb down the content and pays full respect to the Conference’s ability to deal with the material.
The pamphlet was read and discussed in shop stewards training courses at the AMWSU and also in the Trade Union Training Authority.
There is no defeatism and no resignation. He argues for why and how workers must organise to take control of the technology.
Carmichael would work on this right through to his retirement, especially in the significance of award restructuring and new vocational education that would enable.
A Counter Strategy to Multi National Domination and a Transitional Programme to Socialism
Introduction - Don Sutherland
In August of 1977, Laurie Carmichael delivered a speech under this title to the Political Economy Conference in Melbourne.
This pamphlet was authorised by the National Administrative Committee of the AMWSU for public distribution and to promote discussion and learning about the issues it deals with.
Click here
The speech has been posted to this archive in a different, more readable format. Click here.
The AMWU Remembers Laurie Carmichael
By Andrew Dettmer, National President of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union
The Carmichael family go to "anti-war"
Introduction – Don Sutherland
Val Carmichael arrested and carried dragged along the street
Laurie Carmichael is recognised as a champion of peaceful relations between nations and directly involved in many anti struggles. Especially, he is remembered as one of the prime leaders of the anti-Vietnam War movement in Victoria in the sixties and 70’s.
Here is an extract from a history of this struggle by Tony Duras:
“The links between draft resisters and unions in Melbourne were strengthened by the case of Laurie Carmichael Jr, the son of the State Secretary of the AEU. When the younger Carmichael appeared at Williamstown Court to answer charges relating to his refusal to report for a medical examination, he was whisked away by supporters. Angry scenes erupted and Laurie Carmichael and his wife Val as well as twelve other people were arrested. In protest against the "brutal treatment" the police meted out to demonstrator, especially Val Carmichael, who was knocked over and dragged along the ground by her feet, the Rebel Unions issued a statement that:
we recommend to Unions that a campaign of lunchtime and stopwork meetings be held and that contact be made with sister organisations in other states, finally aimed at National action on the part of the worker.
A week later, when the Carmichaels appeared at Williamstown Court, unionists held meetings and demonstrated outside the court.
According to Ken Carr, "...at the Williamstown Naval Dockyard the blokes just dropped their tools and marched towards the court." Approximately five hundred workers from the dockyard and seven hundred meatworkers from Newport stopped work to attend the demonstration.
Moreover: after the Carmichael case, Union leaders like George Crawford (Plumbers Union), Ray Hogan (Miscellaneous Workers Union) and Roger Wilson (Seamen's Union) were readily available to meet with draft resisters and student activists at short notice. Unions continued to assist in organising factory meetings and addressing shop steward seminars.
It is difficult to gauge the effect of the Carmichael trial on individual unionists but it almost certainly influenced the declaration of two to three hundred union officials from the Rebel Unions in Victoria:
We encourage those young men already conscripted to refuse to accept orders against their conscience and those in Vietnam to lay down their arms in mutiny against the heinous barbarism perpetuated in our name upon the innocent, aged, men, women and children.
In August 1971, ten union officials were charged with violating the National Service Act because they were handing out leaflets which encouraged young men to refuse to register for National Service. They were among a group of thirty union organisers and officials from a variety of unions who were handing out anti-registration leaflets outside the offices of the Department of Labor and National Service in Melbourne. In their court statement the unionists, who were found guilty and fined between $20 and $50 each, declared that:
As Trade Union Officials, representing many thousands of organized workers, we firmly believe that the continued conscription of young Australians to be sent to Vietnam to kill or be killed is a criminal act. We therefore, as a matter of conscience with 30 other like-minded Trade Union Officials deliberately handed out leaflets in Flinders Street outside the Department of Labor and National Service.
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To read the whole story CLICK HERE.
Also, Laurie Carmichael Jr reflects on this: CLICK HERE.
For more from Laurie Carmichael on union building at the Williamstown Naval Dockyard: CLICK HERE.
The campaign for a Shorter Working Week
Introduction – Don Sutherland
In this article Laurie explains the reasons for the surge in the late 1970s in popular support for a shorter working week, starting with the demand for a 35 hour week.
He joins together the history of the demand in the union movement, the immediate developments unfolding at the time, the drive coming from workers themselves, the “political economy” of the time – impending recession, “structural adjustment” undermining Australian manufacturing, other dimensions of economic and environmental crisis, and, of course technological change – the strategic and tactical challenges that would face unions and their members.
Probably The Mercury, 18/6/80
Classic Carmichael saying
From The Carmichael Family Archives
Relevant in our modern times?
Laurie Carmichael Jr's Eulogy for Laurie Sr
Laurie Carmichael Jr describes Laurie's rich personal life
Laurie Carmichael as Union Educator (1)
With Organising Works Trainees 1997 (excerpt)
Introduction - Don Sutherland
Laurie Carmichael, renowned Australian metalworkers union leader, is running a seminar with Victorian union organiser trainees who are a part of the ACTU's Organising Works Programme. In this excerpt, he shows a little bit of his approach to learning and union education and his self taught capacity as a union educator.
Key concepts include "learning by doing", the significance of awards, awards as a record of class struggle, history and the immediate priorities.
This is 1997, 3 years or so after Laurie's retirement.