Union Solidarity

So I was feeling a little bit depressed last night. The authorities at school (our lesbian principal) have been making our school queer movement (not that we're allowed to say queer or movement...or make, end or a host of other seemingly inoffensive words) incredibly difficult. I recently copped a bit of shit from the knuckle heads who sit in the back row of one of my classes (need I say more) and sadly had even experienced some transphobia from a friend from within the queer movement and I had bad tooth ache : (. Though I was offcourse no where near ready to throw the towel in, that huge task ahead of us (eliminating queerphobia) appeared to be getting larger instead of smaller, so I rummaged through my queer and feminist political literature for some inspiration and a boost in motivation. I found it, in the story Of Jeremy fisher as recorded by himself:

Pink BansThe historic role of the New South Wales Builders Labourers federation in support of Gay rights

Late in the evening of May 26, 1973 in my room at Robert Menzies College, an Anglican residential college of Macquarie University, I attempted to kill myself. I was very nearly successful. Why I did so has a lot to do with the fact that I was 18, from the country and gay. Unfortunately, many 18-year-old gay males, especially those from the country, still try to kill themselves and some of them succeed. But that is another story.

[Extensive construction work was occuring at Menzies College, and other campusses of te university]

I had joined the small gay students' group on campus. In their book green Bans, Red Union Meredith and Vertit Burgman recall I was elected Treasurer. It was no big thing, though. There were no more than ten or twelve of us gays and lesbians in the group at any one time. As treasurer, I was never responsible for any amount greater than $20.

I didn't advise the College, especially its dean, the Reverend Alan Cole, of my on-campus activities. I sensed the information wouldn't have been received well. As well, in the College I was being encouraged to join in the prayer and bible discussion groups, but I resisted. While the College might have been run by the Anglican Church, I didn’t see why I had to subscribe to the church's teachings. The College's information pack clearly stated that it accepted students of all faiths.

I'd chosen to study at Macquarie because I had vague thoughts that I might become a teacher, but I knew I wouldn't be allowed into schools if I were open about my sexuality. Homosexuals were not accepted as teachers in New South Wales schools in 1973.

Following my suicide attempt, my parents came down to Sydney from Newcastle as soon as they heard I was in hospital. After I was released into their care, Allan Cole had a conversation with my father and me, meant to offer solace and care. He said he believed that I was possessed by a satanic mask that I had hung on the wall of my college room.

[While Jeremey was in hospital the Cole had investigated and discovered the existance of the Gay and Lesbian group at Menzies and had discovered that Jeremy was the Treasurer, he had found the money in Jeremy's room, Jeremey joked in a tallk he gave at QC that there was probably only about $5]

No doubt Cole meant well and was sincere in his views, but there was something disconcerting about the passionate way he put them...

A day or so after my conversation with Cole I walked down the concrete steps from the ground building into the basement Students' Council offices at Macquarie University as Rod Webb and Jeff Hayler were preparing the final copy for the next edition of the student paper, Arena. Bearded Rod Webb (latter program director for SBS) was editor of the newspaper. Rod was heavily involved in what was then known as the Socialist Workers' League, a Trotskyist organisation following a philosophy espoused by an American group called the Socialist Workers Party. Jeff by contrast was the product of a western suburbs Catholic school and more of the pragmatic left. He acted as the oil that smoothed the differences between the Left coalitions that then dominated the Students' council. During my time at Macquarie, the council was the training ground for future politicians such as senator John Faulkner, union activists like David Carrey of the Public Service Union, and future journalists like Jenny Brockie of SBS.

I told Jeff and Rod I needed to talk to them. They asked me to wait while they finished what they were doing. They were on a deadline...

Once the delaine had been met and the proofs despatched, attention fell on me. I hesitantly spoke to Rod and Jeff about my problem with Robert Menzies College and they immediately went to work, ringing their contacts across Sydney. Suddenly the Builders Labourers Federation (BLF) had green-banned construction at the college over me. Almost immediately I was a media event. Even back then with the clumsy technology of the seventies, television could act fast. Within hours of Rod and Jeff's first calls, a reporter from the ABC's This Day Tonight and a silent cameraman interviewed me under a grevillea on a rise near Chancellery.... The interview was technical and unemotional.

When the results appeared that night on the ABC the power of the medium hit me. That was me talking to the world and telling everybody that I was gay and that the Anglican Church had discriminated against me. Overnight I became the 'Jeremy Fisher Incident' and received an object lesson in the power of television. But it was too late to turn back. I had to keep going.

It was only days after I'd been in hospital. Possibly I should have allowed myself more time to recuperate. But Cole's attitude had annoyed me, telling me I had to be something different to what I was because his God demanded it of me. However, Cole's attitude to me, to homosexuals, infuriated me, gave me back some pride in myself, defined my homosexual persona enough for me to take umbrage and make a stand. I am sure Cole never expected the resulting fuss. He was completely convinced of the correctness of his actions.

But so was I.

When we came out of the meeting with Cole, my father has said: 'You're not going back there', meaning the college. I didn’t want to go, either. I wasn’t objecting to Cole's attitude because I wanted to return to the College. My point was simply that Cole shouldn't be imposing his own religiosity in a secular, university environment. It was a point of principle. The BLF assumed I wanted to go back until, one day back down in the Students' Council basement, Bob Pringle, then part of the BLF's leadership, asked me:

'why do you want to go back into that place?'

'I don't' I said'

But we're out on strike to put you back' he said, a hint of anger in his eyes.

'I thought I'd been kicked out because I was gay' I answered.

Bob looked at me for a moment, directly into my eyes. All sorts of thoughts whirled into my head. Was he going to withdraw BLF's support? Did he think I'd tricked him? Did he want to hit me? Then he said:'I guess you're right. It's the principle of the thing. They shouldn't pick on a bloke because of his sexuality.

It was now early June 1973. The Builders' Labourers had green-banned further building at college and were threatening to do the same for the whole university if the college were threatening to do the same for the whole university if the College wasn’t disciplined for it's anti-homosexual attitude. It was a brave decision for a union to take.

...The union had been earlier approached by Jean Curthoys and Elizebeth Jacka at the University of Sydney when the university refused to approve a course on women's social liberation. Curthoys and Jacka asked the union to give support, since the proposed course was supported by staff and students, but resisted by the administration. Both women addressed a meeting of union members at the University and as a result the members, all men voted to stop work in support of the course. Mundey (then secretary of the BLF) says: 'And this of course was taken up in the newspapers as a...big issue because here is an all male, union...that has never been involved in women's issues taking action to support the rights of women.' The union’s action encouraged the University administration to have a change of heart and approve the course.

With regard to Macquarie University and me, Mundey says because 'these students and workers had been together against the Vietnam War and anti-apartheid, it was taken that there was a relationship there, between the progressive students and the...workers, the progressive trade unionists. And again, as a repeat of what happened at Sydney University, Bob Pringle, the president, went out to that university. Again there was substantial building taking place because Macquarie came together and they, like [at] Sydney University, took action and said, they'll go on strike until Fisher is reinstated.'

Mundey notes that 'not every builders' labourer was a galloping conservationist or women's' libber or even supporter of the rights of gays', but nevertheless the union developed a more mature position on these issues in the face of hostility from some of the more extreme elements. While the union still agitated on basic employment issues, it also developed policies that addressed 'such things as how people live, the question of what the next generation is going to leave them.' The union also encouraged people from the gay movement to addressee 'such things as how people live, the question of what the next generation is going to have, what are we going to leave for them'. The union also encouraged people from the gay movement to address its members at their work sites and highlight the discrimination suffered by homosexuals at a time when their sexual orientation, at least for males was still illegal. Homosexuality wasn't an issue that the BLF membership felt strongly about, as Jack Mundey notes, but regardless the union acted in support of my right to live openly as a homosexual on a secular university campus. Previously, green bans had some environmental focus. This was the first time the union had acted on an issue of this nature, and as far as I'm aware the first time any union anywhere in the world supported gay rights as a matter of principle.

Verity Burgmann has written 'One of the famous early battles of gay liberation was over the expelling of Jeremy Fisher from a residential college at Macquarie University, for being gay, in June 1973. The NSW Branch of the Builders Labourers Federation stopped work on the uncompleted college in protest, in solidarity with gay liberation.' she and her sister Meredith Burgmann, then a philosophy lecturer at Macquarie and now President of the Legislative Council of New South Wales, also described the events in their book Green Bans, Red Union as a 'pink ban'. And so it was: the very first.
-Jeremy Fisher

In more recent times the Fire Fighters union has taken a stand for queer rights. The fire fighters union encouraged their members to vote green over Labour for their stance on same-sex marriage.

The struggle for Queer rights is tied up with the struggles of workers and of unionists as we struggle against the same oppressive system.