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Published · Cartoons / Obituary

Vale Jack Mundey

Sam Wallman

Sam Wallman is a unionist and cartoonist based on unceded Wurundjeri country. He is a member of the Workers Art Collective and the Maritime Union of Australia. His new book 12 Rules for Strife was produced in collaboration with Jeff Sparrow and will be published by Scribe Publications on May Day 2024. You can follow his work here.

More by Sam Wallman ›

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  3. very good. I will have it on FB. i follow your work. I am a retired union trouble-maker I recently have taken into the art world. I started on colour around 1906 and am still working it out.
    In recent years my comrades say why dont I do union/olitical art – and I am now trying.
    One of my issues is that I only recently started to learn to draw. I would like to do cartoons like you. And so we could meet – after COVID-19.I will join the Workers Art collective.
    Where are you located – anywhere near the NUW? I live in West Melbourne.
    I add that I am suffering a severe brain disease called FTD. It seems my form of dementia likes art and so my art is calming me down.

    1. Really inspiring! Reminds me of the union banners I saw once down in the basement of “Union House”. These banners used to be carried through city streets when unions were visible like in Jack’s day. How proud he would have been to see Sam’s work up front of the March!

  6. Thank you Overland, this is what i call community connecting and informing.
    How does one get in touch with the Workers Art Collective?

    with much appreciation,

    Lella Cariddi OAM

  10. I interviewed Jack Mundey for ABC Radio’s Education Dept (back in the 70s, when they still did schools broadcasts). He was a very generous subject, explaining his objectives in compelling terms. Then he absolutely left me speechless. While the mike was still open, he confided in me about the threats against his life. I think his was a magnificent life, saving so much of our beautiful architecture from brutal demolition. Vale Jack Monday, a real hero!

  11. A true activist in every part of his life. Well I remember his articulation in the 70’s. The perfect example of the working class intellectual of which there are so few in these times. A great Australian and humanitarian. Vale Jack.

  13. That is a lovely work. It has real architectural strength (appropriately), which gives it a satisfying logicality, but you’ve woven organic forms and the man’s own words throughout; a really nice approach, beautiful but still fun. I’m so glad to see a great person commemorated this way; thank you.

  14. Thank you for the great cartoon. The Green Bans were an important part of my life. In the early 1970s, I had got into the habit of calling into the federal office of the BLF to do photocopying, such as running off catalogues for my exhibitions, and got to know Pat George, Normie Gallagher’s secretary. In 1974, I was commissioned by Norm to draw the Green Bans buildings around Australia, a world first that saw community groups join with a blue collar union to protect the urban environment at a time when we were seeing the wanton destruction of some of our finest buildings by greedy developers. I drew in Melbourne, Brisbane, Hobart, and Adelaide, but it was in Sydney, especially in the battle for Victoria Street in Kings Cross, that I will never forget.

  15. So great! Reading about the campaigns he was involved in reminded me that unions should be at the absolute vanguard of all of our struggles. Everything can be incorporated with in them. Yet, in recent years we have seen top-down PR campaigns of “allyship” which really are just window dressing.

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