The Journal

248 Spring 2022

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Essays by Thomas Moran, Jonno Revanche, Michael Griffiths and Abigail Fisher. New poety and fiction from Aidan Coleman, Alan Fyfe, Gareth Morgan, Janet Jiahui Wu, Dan Hogan, Kerry Greer and more.

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Overland literary journal > Articles by: Sam Wallman

Author archives

Sam Wallman

Sam Wallman is a unionist and cartoonist based on unceded Wurundjeri country. He is a member of the Workers Art Collective. His new longform book, Our Members Be Unlimited: a Comic About Unions is out now through Scribe Publications. You can follow his work here.

Articles by Sam Wallman:

27 January 2023

In attacking us, they bring us together

Sam Wallman

'What these bosses don't understand is that in attacking us, they bring us together.' (Paddy Crumlin, Maritime Union of Australia, Svitzer Rally November 2022)

15 December 202216 December 2022

Let them vote

Sam Wallman

At sixteen years old you're old enough to die in a war, have worked for two years, drive a car, leave school, pay taxes, get married, secure public housing, vote in over 15 other countries, have an existential crisis. Let 16+ year olds vote!

8 November 20229 November 2022

You don’t have to hate your job to want a union

Sam Wallman

Sometimes people's care for their workplace gets weaponised and used against them. Just remember: you don't have to hate your job to want a union.

20 October 202220 October 2022

Enough to power 500 Australias

Sam Wallman

The landmass we call Australia is rich with sun and wind, with enough renewable energy to power 500 Australias.

21 September 202226 September 2022

Act your wage

Sam Wallman

Sam Wallman has some suggestions for how workers should behave on the job.

29 August 20228 September 2022

Public transport should be free

Sam Wallman

This month, Rail Tram and Bus Union members in NSW gifted the public free train travel as part of their industrial action against the tightarse Tory State Government. In so doing they showed us that maybe public transport should be free. We already pay for it.

27 July 202231 August 2022

Whose job it is to cover your shift if you’re sick

Sam Wallman

It's 100,000% your boss's job to cover your shift if you're sick, not yours. Your boss absorbs the profit, let them absorb the risk.

4 July 202215 August 2022

Private school? I would rather—

Sam Wallman

In which Sam Wallman expresses a strong opinion about the educational value and social role of private schools.

7 June 202225 July 2022

‘We deserve so much more.’ An extract from Our Members Be Unlimited

Sam Wallman

In spite of isolated acts of warmth and grace taking place between people around the world at any given moment, broadly speaking, formally organised collectivism is in decline. We've probably never been this alone, in a time when coming together couldn't be more important.

2 June 202225 July 2022

Meaningful action vs sterile and harmful action

Sam Wallman

‘Meaningful action is whatever increases the confidence, the autonomy, the initiative, the participation, the solidarity, the equalitarian tendencies and the self-activity of the masses and whatever assists in their demystification. Sterile and harmful action is whatever reinforces the passivity of the masses, their apathy, their cynicism, their differentiation through hierarchy, their alienation, their reliance on others to do things for them and the degree to which they can therefore be manipulated by others—even by those allegedly acting on their behalf.’

2 May 202214 July 2022

Inside ‘Corporate Memphis’

Sam Wallman

Why do all drawings look the same? The style known as 'Corporate Memphis' deploys flat, geometric, benign-looking figures, rendered in solid colours. Their fun, bendy arms offering to launder the reputation of any real estate agent, bank or social media platform.

31 March 202218 May 2022

Don’t start what you can’t finish

Sam Wallman

28 February 20224 May 2022

Fuck lawns

Sam Wallman

In seventeenth-century England, highly manicured lawn emerged as a symbol of control, dominance and status across the estates of the ruling class. Each year, people spend over $30 billion on lawns, which consumes 30-60 per cent of urban fresh water supplies. If nothing is eating your plants, then your garden is not part of the ecosystem.

1 February 202211 March 2022

Who’s afraid of gay blood?

Sam Wallman

Men who have sex with men are largely banned from donating blood in Australia and the United States. The ban on gay blood donations is a hangover from nearly half a century ago, when much less was known about HIV & AIDS. Individual donors should be assessed based on their individual risk—not their gender or sexuality.

20 December 20213 March 2022

The work to be done

Sam Wallman

If you're unemployed it's not because there isn't any work. Just look around: a housing shortage, crime, pollution, we need better schools and parks. Whatever our needs, they all require work. And as long as we have unsatisfied needs, there's work to be done.

21 November 202128 January 2022

Make the Yarra swimmable

Sam Wallman

For over 40,000 years, the Yarra has been actively cared for by the people of the Woi Wurrung and Boon Wurrung nations. These communities are still today fighting for the river.

11 October 202116 November 2021

Our strength to strike is built through striking

Sam Wallman

Striking is the workers' greatest weapon. Here's a poster to prove it.

7 September 20215 October 2021

Revealed: how much rich people care about your mental health

Sam Wallman

Plotting the results of a rigorous longitudinal study, Sam Wallman illustrates how much the rich care for your mental health, expressed as fucks given vs whether or not there is a lockdown.

31 August 202127 September 2021

Safe injecting rooms save lives

Sam Wallman

A safe injecting room in Melbourne saved at least twenty-one lives in its first eighteen months of operations, and prevented 270 serious overdose incidents. No-one Safe injecting rooms save lives: Build them. Defend them.

8 August 20215 September 2021

The People’s Olympiad

Sam Wallman

In 1936, the Olympics were held in Nazi Germany, but the showcase for fascism and Nazi soft power did not go unopposed. six thousand athletes travelled to Barcelona for the ‘People’s Olympiad’, an alternative and explicitly anti-fascist games.

28 June 20212 August 2021

Right-wing Queensland: a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Sam Wallman

Whose interests are interests are served when we uphold the narrative of an irreversibly conservative Queensland?

24 May 202129 June 2021

Workers and unions: stand with Palestine

Sam Wallman

Tapping into a deep history, in May 2021 Italian dockworkers refused to load weapons onto a ship headed for Israel. A few days later, Palestinians held a general strike across all industries, the largest since 1948. Only 150 of 65,000 Palestinian construction workers in Israel showed up to work.

28 April 20211 June 2021

The open-and-shut case against prison expansion

Sam Wallman

A new cartoon by Sam Wallman (after William Waltzman) for the Homes not Prisons campaign

23 March 202111 May 2021

Using power builds power

Sam Wallman

'People think that using power is a limited resource, but using power builds power' (Sara Nelson, President, Association of Flight Attendants, CWA, AFL-CIO)

15 February 202118 March 2021

Greetings from the Sydney Opera House: completed under workers’ control

Sam Wallman

After a long string of strikes, the final stages of the construction of the Sydney Opera House were carried out without any managers. For a month and a half, the workers experienced first-hand what they had long presumed – that they really didn’t need the bosses. They planned and made decisions democratically, won huge advances in pay and conditions, and together constructed one of Australia’s most enduring and beloved icons. The building embodies all of this, to this day.

20 January 202119 February 2021

The housing crisis is a choice made by the state

Sam Wallman

Two thousand rough sleepers in Victoria who were offered hotel accommodation during the pandemic are now being hastily evicted. The government showed us how easily they can house people when it's considered a priority. They can't unshow us that. We can't unsee it.

19 November 202021 January 2021

Social housing is not the same as public housing

Sam Wallman

Social housing is not the same as public housing.

Published in Overland Issue 239 Winter 2020

May Day 2020

Sam Wallman

3 October 20202 November 2020

Solidarity with the wharfies

Sam Wallman

Ever since the 1930s, whenever wharfies strike the bosses squeal: 'They are holding up medical supplies.' Wharfies always respond stating that they will: 'Priorities and unload any ship containing medical supplies.'

13 May 202024 June 2020

Vale Jack Mundey

Sam Wallman

'My dream and that of hundreds of thousands or millions of others may come true: a socialist world with a human face, an ecological heart, an egalitarian body.'

10 March 202023 April 2020

On panic buying

Sam Wallman and Miroslav Sandev

The images of working people fighting each other over toilet paper shouldn't fill you with feelings of contempt or superiority because you're not 'stooping' to that.

30 October 201913 November 2019

It’s business, as usual! How to deal with IMARC protesters

Sam Wallman

Protect the right to protest, or protect the interests of mining CEOs – what will the Victoria police choose?

Published in Overland Issue 236 Spring 2019

Guest artist for Overland 236: Sam Wallman

Sam Wallman

Cover and cartoons for this edition by comics journalist and labour organiser Sam Wallman.

14 October 20199 November 2019

What became of the right to strike

Sam Wallman

As industrial organiser Jerome Small once said: ‘I’m not a robot and I’m not a donkey, so I should be able to stop working when I choose to’. Sadly, going out on strike is all but outlawed in Australia, thanks to some of the most restrictive laws surrounding workplace action in any OECD nation.

26 August 201915 September 2019

Do a revolution already, will ya?

Sam Wallman

Sam Wallman listens to the signs.

20 May 201921 June 2019

How a persecuted union movement fought back

Sam Wallman

This comic was commissioned by the Rail Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1969 General Strike and Clarrie O’Shea’s release from prison.

13 March 201912 June 2019

What is a strike?

Sam Wallman

Sam Wallman reports from the pavement outside the Chemist Warehouse during the (ongoing) picket in Preston.

Published in Overland Issue 225 Summer 2016

Guest artist for Overland 225: Sam Wallman

Sam Wallman

All artwork for Overland 225 by guest artist for the edition, Sam Wallman.

28 November 20161 May 2019

Never forget Tyrone Unsworth

Sam Wallman

Remembering Tyrone Unsworth, the thirteen-year-old student who died in Brisbane last week.

4 November 201623 November 2016

The path to voting Trump

Sam Wallman

Sam Wallman, currently on the road in the US, covers the election through the eyes of ordinary people.

18 August 20162 September 2016

Read this!

Carina Garland, Sam Wallman and Jacinda Woodhead

Still mulling over ideas for your Fair Australia Prize entry? Judges Carina Garland, Sam Wallman and Jacinda Woodhead have come up with a reading/watching list that may help.

Sunshine votes by Sam Wallman

2 July 201617 August 2016

Sunshine votes

Sam Wallman

Reportage from the Sunshine polling booth at the 2016 federal election.

24 March 20161 May 2019

#INeedSafeSchools

Sam Wallman

Sam Wallman on how to ensure safe schools.

Your bigotry has a body count

24 March 20161 May 2019

#INeedSafeSchools

Sam Wallman

Sam Wallman on how to ensure safe schools.

Chaplains versus Safe Schools Coalition

26 February 20161 May 2019

Chaplains versus the Safe Schools Coalition

Sam Wallman

Sam Wallman on religion versus equality in public schools.

Published in Overland Issue 221 Summer 2015

Ain’t no border high enough

Sam Wallman

Drawings from time spent with an autonomous collective working to support people crossing Europe’s borders.

11 November 20159 February 2016

I can’t believe it’s only 15 steps!

Sam Wallman

Start with yourself, but don't finish with yourself.

28 August 20156 October 2015

This is me patiently explaining what mansplaining is

Sam Wallman

This is me patiently explaining what mansplaining is.

27 April 201511 May 2015

The nation state of the internet

Sam Wallman

‘The nation state of the internet’, by Sam Wallman. First published in L’Internazionale, 17 April 2015.

Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014

Art

Leuli Eshraghi, Lily Mae Martin, Mahla Karimiyan, Sam Wallman, Merv Heers, Madina Sayar, Anton Pulvirenti and Alwy Fadhel

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Published in Overland Issue 216 Spring 2014

Art

Keith McDougall, Sam Wallman, Abdul Adbullah, Joanna Anderson, Safdar Ahmed and Kate Parrish

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Published in Overland Issue 215 Winter 2014

Art

Sam Wallman, Amy Hill, Matt Huynh, Patrick Kyle, Marc Pearson, Jo Waite, Javed de Costa, Angela Mitropoulos and Mary Leunig

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11 November 201315 November 2013

Cartoon: Protest at the Department of Immigration

Sam Wallman

Cartoonist Sam Wallman visited last week’s demonstration outside Melbourne’s Department of Immigration and Citizenship, which was protesting a massacre of Iranian refugees in Iraq and calling for Australia to offer asylum to the survivors.