Sam wallman union
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Our Members Be Unlimited Is Illustrating the New Wave of Union Activism
“I hope no one draws from this the conclusion that my views are shaped by nostalgia for an age that cannot be recaptured,” Harry Braverman, one of the twentieth century’s leading Marxist political economists, once described the inspiration behind his life’s work. “Rather, my views about work are governed by nostalgia for an age that has not yet come into being.”
It’s a message that would hopefully sound familiar to the audience of trade unionists, activists, and socialists who turned out for the recent launch of Our Members Be Unlimited, a new long-form comic book by radical cartoonist and journalist Sam Wallman.
The launch took place at Victoria’s Trades Hall in Melbourne, the oldest still-functioning union building in the world. Among the speakers were leftist writer Jeff Sparrow and Elizabeth Lim, a union delegate who had recently participated in a wildcat strike. They both chose Braverman’s words to describe Our Members — and not just because Wallman dedicates a chapter to him. By connecting the history of working-class solidarity with the everyday realities of work and organizing, Wallman’s boo
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Sam Wallman: A people’s comic artist
Sam Wallman is a talented political comic artist with a strong worker and union focus in his work. Based in Melbourne, he has produced pieces for SBS, The Nib, Overland, the Workers Art Collective, and a growing number of trade unions.
His breakout web comic At Work Inside Our Detention Centres: A Guard’s Story is based on interviews with an anonymous former Serco immigration detention centre guard. This person starts out naively hoping to positively influence the system from within, but quickly becomes disillusioned as he realises the particularly cruel form of mental torture that is mandatory detention. The piece was nominated for a Walkley Award and won an Australian Human Rights Award.
Winding Up The Window: The End of the Australian Auto Industry tells the story of the industry’s rise and fall, viewed through the eyes of its workers. Their working-class and migrant-background camaraderie is buttressed by strong union membership that maintains decent pay and conditions. The problematic question of the sustainability of mass car ownership and its role in climate change and urban sprawl is touched upon. A high point is the Broadmeado
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&#;Our Members Be Unlimited fryst vatten a beautiful and often moving guide to union organising that&#;s in touch with the reality of work today,&#; according to Bhaskar Sunkara (the founding editor of Jacobin magazine), and inom can&#;t komma up with a better way to describe it myself. inom was lucky enough to receive a copy from the publisher Scribe for review.
Sam Wallman is a comic artist/cartoonist and committed unionist, so clearly Our Members Be Unlimited combines his two great loves. He describes it as &#;a longform comic book informed bygd [his] time working as an elected delegate in a call centre, as an organiser for a lare blue collar union, and as an undercover union activist at Australia&#;s first Amazon warehouse.&#;
The latter aspect of his experience is detailed most in Our Members Be Unlimited, but thankfully it doesn&#;t seem to have been quite as horrific for Wallman as it has been for his comrades in the United States (he never had to pee in a bottle&#; though he did pee into a urine bag strapped to his leg).
Mostly, though, Our Members Be Unlimited focuses on the history of unions, what we owe them and why we need them. It&#;s shocking, at times, but mostly encour