Queensland Trade Unionist Michael Weise has been a member of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) in the Mining and Energy division since 1989. He discusses his career within the union, as well as significant CFMEU campaigns and efforts such as the re-unionisation of the Pilbara mining region in Western Australia and the Let's Spread it Around campaign.
Howard Guille was the Queensland State Secretary for the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) from 1993 to 2006 and was involved in the 1993 amalgamation of academic unions which formed the NTEU. During his union career he was involved in enterprise bargaining, the Indigenous Stolen Wages Campaign and the Papua New Guinea National Minimum Wage Case.
Mary Kelly was President of the Queensland Teachers Union (QTU) from 1986 until 1994. Only the second woman to ever lead the QTU, and the first to do so full-time, she had been a longstanding executive member of the union. In both of these capacities, she worked to improve conditions for all involved in education, but for women teachers and students particularly. She was the Vice-President of the Australian Education Union, an active member of the Working Woman's Charter Committee, and one of the first women executive members of the Trades and Labor Council.
Trade Unionist Kevin Carroll has been a member of the Building Workers Industrial Union (amalgamated into the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union in 1991) since 1965, and has held prominent roles within both the BWIU and the Trades and Labor Council. He discusses his career within the building and construction industry, and highlights some of the key challenges facing the union movement.
Unionist Janice Mayes was the President of the Federated Clerks Union, later the Australian Services Union, from 1990, and member of the union's national executive until 2006. As a union official, Mayes has worked on various industrial campaigns including workplace bullying, unpaid overtime, privitisation, and issues relating to women.
Union official and academic Diane Zetlin has worked in an academic capacity at the University of Queensland since 1976. She became involved with the Federated Australian University Staff Association (FAUSA) as President, and was involved in the amalgamation of unions to form the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), of which she later became General Secretary. Her career has spanned radical changes in political and social attitudes, and she discusses changing conditions for tertiary workers and the role of women in trade unions.
Trade Unionist Walter Threlfall became Assistant State Secretary of the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) in 1983. He discusses his time as an ETU member and official from 1972 until the mid-1990s in North Queensland, with particular reference to the infamous SEQEB dispute of the Bjelke-Petersen era and the Mount Isa Mine lockout.
Trade Unionist Darryl Noack was the North Queensland District Secretary of the Australian Workers Union (AWU) from 2008. He was an elected shop steward of the Federated Ironworkers Association from 1973-79, before serving as a delegate in 1979. He then moved to the Australian Workers Union where he served first as a representative in North Queensland in 1988, before his appointment as a full time AWU organiser in 1993. He reflects on industrial conflict, Indigenous participation and the changing nature of unionism.
Trade Unionist Bill Marklew was appointed Secretary of the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) in Queensland in 2000. He has been a member of the CPSU since 1994 and played a key role in the organisation of the picket line during the Maritine Union of Australia dispute in Townsville as well as the Our Rights at Work Campaign in Brisbane.
Public servant Linda Apelt was Director General of the Department of Housing (1998-2004), Disability Services Queensland (2004-09) and Department of Communities (2009-12) one of the Bligh Government’s ‘Super Departments’. In this interview she describes the changing relationships between the public service and ministers, and the role of director general.
