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BOOK NOTES
| Felicity Bartak with Phillip Deery, A Unique Endeavour: A History of the Western Region Health Centre, 1964-2004,Western Region Health Service, Footscray, 2004. pp. + 127. $20.00 paper (available from the publisher http://www.wrhc.com.au/).
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This book offers an illuminating case study of trade union action in the areas of workers' health and safety. While unions often agitated for access to medical facilities, state-sponsored workers' compensation, or even funded the construction of hospitals in some areas, the case of the Western Region Health Centre in Footscray, Victoria shows one union establishing and managing its own health service. In 1964 the Australian Meat Industry Employees Union set up the Trade Union Clinic and Research Centre Ltd, offering innovative services in an area traditionally not well served by existing government and private providers. Underpinned by strong written and oral sources, and graced with many photos and illustrations, this is a sympathetic and thoughtful account of the Centre, which Clyde Holding once called 'an important social experiment by a trade union'.
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| Shane Homan,The Mayor's a Square: Live Music and Law and Order in Sydney,Local Consumption Publications, Newtown, NSW, 2003. pp. + 210. $29.95 paper.
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| This book slipped under the Labour History radar but is well worth a look. Homan analyses the relationship between venues, politics, rock bands and audiences from the early 1950s. He brings together the diverse literature on popular music, complementing it with interviews of some of the major performers, promoters, and managers of the era. He points to popular disturbances on Sydney beaches in the 1960s, including at Cronulla, hinting at a deeper history to more recent crowd violence in that area. His work, though primarily one of cultural criticism and analysis, reminds us that the labour history of popular recreation including music and performance is yet to be written. |
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| University of Newcastle |
ERIK EKLUND | |
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