Fifty years ago, in June 1971, the New South Wales branch of the Builders Labourers Federation voted to ban construction of a luxury housing development in the Sydney harborside suburb of Hunters Hill.
Earlier that month, however, the Battlers for Kelly’s Bush — a resident action group — held a meeting of over six hundred people.
What is the good of fighting to improve wages and conditions if we are going to choke to death in polluted and planless cities? We are fighting for a shorter working week.
Developer AVJennings attempted to circumvent the green ban by using nonunion labor.
Soon, all manner of people started appealing to the NSWBLF to block developments threatening low-income housing, green space, and built heritage.
The green bans resulted from of an array of coalitions in which building workers allied with working-class and middle-class resident action groups, feminists, Aboriginal and anti-apartheid activists, and gay activists.
At the peak of the green ban movement, even critics were prepared to concede that the NSWBLF backed a number of worthy environmental causes.
Of course there should be action, and the members of the BLF or any other union are entitled to take it, as private citizens, with the rest of us.
When a writer for the National Times sarcastically described union members as “proletarian planners,” he inadvertently hit upon the truth.
They never missed an opportunity to rename “development” as “so-called development,” refusing to equate the interests of developers with the needs of the city and its residents.
Crucially, fighting for these principles required the industrial power of a well-organized and determined union.
For example, when demolition work started at a site in Sydney’s historic low-income Rocks district under a green ban, the union halted construction on seven nearby sites.
After two days, eight thousand builders laborers were on strike across the city.
The meeting had to decide how long the ban had to last, what other steps would be taken and when a report would be made to a further assembly.
By imposing these requirements, the union ensured that community groups seeking a green ban were strong enough to make the alliance with the union meaningful.
This was the case with the green ban on the Theatre Royal, where Actors Equity galvanized support behind a ban.
In Wyong, a couple hours’ drive north of Sydney, union members voted to strike over working conditions on a shopping mall construction site.
However, when the union hastily convened a meeting of residents, the residents voted in favor of the shopping mall.
Sometimes the green bans were viewed as a way to win “breathing space,” which is to say they forced developers and planners back to the drawing board.
He reminds them that there is a green ban in place on the building, and that any attempt to redevelop without union consent would be blocked.
In alliance with some of the area’s low-income residents, they eventually forced the state government redevelopment authority to back down and came up with their own “People’s Plan” for the area.
To go beyond bans and to proactively shape the city, the movement needed to win control over land and capital.
In the suburbs of Glebe and Woolloomooloo, for example, the union and community groups had imposed green bans to prevent developments that threatened to push low-income communities out of the inner city.
The Whitlam government’s Department of Aboriginal Affairs played a similarly important role.
. But it would also, of course, have very beneficial effects for building workers, currently subject to the sack at an hour’s notice and notoriously some of the worst affected by recession.
This program reflected the influence of unions and residents who had been involved in green bans.
The federal leadership of the BLF assisted them by expelling leaders in the NSW branch who had supported the green bans and lifting many of the bans still in place.
Whitlam then lost the following election to Malcolm Fraser, putting an end to the radical plans developed while he was in office.
Over time, the green bans have gained recognition for their role in conserving heritage buildings, green space, and low-income housing in Sydney.
The conservative state government is intent on selling some of the public housing that it built following green bans in the Rocks and Glebe.
As Anna Sturman and Natasha Heenan have recently argued, a Green New Deal will have to reckon with the capitalist state and its role in both producing and responding to ecological breakdown, economic stagnation, and growing inequality.
We should remember the radical alliances that the NSWBLF formed with diverse community groups, the democratic machinery they built, and the militant action they took.
The radical urban programs outlined by the NSWBLF and Whitlam’s Labor government were anchored to a political movement that forged powerful connections between organized workers and organized communities.
Their bulldozer-driving comrades in the Federated Engine Drivers and Firemen’s Association followed suit.