City Limits this week pays tribute to and explores the legacy of Union leader Jack Mundey, who died on Sunday 10th May 2020, aged 90.

Mundey was the state secretary of the NSW Builders and Labourers Federation in the 1970s, during which time the union implemented 40 green bans - a type of strike where members would not work on projects it viewed as socially or environmentally destructive.

City Limits hosts Kevin Healy and Meg Kimber are joined by guest Dave Sweeney from the Australian Conservation Foundation to dive deeply into the ways workers struggles have, and still do, intersect with environmental action and other issues of community, equality and empowerment. 

Kevin Healey, who knew Mundey personally, said “Jack played a key role, not just in that environmental consideration, but also, the union itself under Jack broadened out incredibly - it became a supporter of gay rights, it became a supporter of women’s rights, it fought to get women into the industry”

Dave Sweeney noted that Mundey was a former vice-president of the Australian Conservation Foundation and “a very long-term and very active NSW counsellor because he saw that as an important next step to the industrial activity and action that he and the BLF took under his leadership to protect, and make, living cities.”