u do til you dont (Patreon)

hey good morning

last time i wrote i put to vote a bunch of options about what i should work on next. making some drawings about the booksellers strike happening at Better Read Than Dead up in Sydney got more than double votes than any other option, so i went with that (good on you RAFFWU patreon supporters on here for giving democracy a nudge lol.
enjoyed it a lot not only cos it was such a significant dispute (first retail strike in 50+ years, first aus bookstore industrial action maybe ever, rly united and engaged workforce, one of my fav unions, a challenge to the dominance of th god awful SDA blabla), but also cos i think it was the first strike that i drew about thru out the whole industrial action, kinda from go to woa which felt special. 

small grieving book that i drew early on and which was wisely vetoed by the ppl i was working with hahaha

campaign graphic produced for an open letter penned by beloved comrades Anwen Crawford and Alison Whittaker that was run by Overland, calling on authors to stand with the booksellers who are a fundamental part of their writing actually reaching ppl. "Our words are in their hands" was signed by over 250 authors which wld have driven the bookstore mad because they are quite.........image conscious (and also very litigious, having ~sued~ RAFFWU and their employees in the lead-up to the strike so i will stop talking now). anyway i love some supply chain shit, was so cool seeing so many authors step up. esp since Reading employees are also trying to unionise at the moment. we also had messages of solidarity from library workers in geelong who are out on strike. "your fight is our fight" was repeated again and again zig zagging back and forth.

rough sketch for the drawing making fun of progressive bookstores. i kinda prefer the energy of the rough sketch to the final piece above, there seems to be a looseness + spirit that i seem to lose as the work goes from sketch to finished work:

they sell these stacks of books, one of the booksellers suggested we draw something based on them cos its something the shop is kinda known for :

the workers decided to place some bans on certain tasks being carried out, like changing the window displays and fulfilling online orders. Better Read Than Dead responded very calmly by locking out employees.

an earlier shittier idea for a drawing at this stage of the dispute:

After 9 days i think it was, all of the RAFFWU members at the site voted unanimously to endorse an agreement that was reached with Better Read Than Dead management. They lifted all industrial action and the lockout and stand-downs ended. Members returned to work with a landmark agreement that includes historic conditions in their sector.

i think everyone was pretty nervous that BRTD might just board up the shop permanently rather than see their staff reach their (very reasonable!) objectives, an extremely real possibility, which would have been terrible not only for the workers who wld hav lost their jobs, but also for the confidence of alot of people, the chilling effect wld've been real as. like, if "strikes beget strikes", then a lack of strikes or failed strikes beget more of the same too, i reckon.
so yeah for one million reasons the outcome was excellent news. You can listen to Better Read Than Dead workers themselves talking about the win here, which is pretty special

The second most popular option out of that poll I sent a few weeks ago was drawing some stuff about safe injecting rooms and harm minimisation, so im gonna get onto that month after next. If u hav any resources on those topics, or any insights u think i shld keep in mind while i develop that work, pls hit me up cos i dont have a whole lot of knowledge about that stuff.

poll results:

thanks heaps to the new ppl who have come on board here recently, i will get onto mailing you some stuff in the mail as thanks over the next week or two. i just used a 'random name picker' website to find the person who gets that Right-wing Queensland banner, n the name that came up was Jake G. will post u soon.

also i got some of these vinyl stickers made up for Auckland Action Against Poverty recently, let me know if u want any, ttly happy to post em out

just quickly i enjoyed this video of a lecture called 'We Took Care of Each Other': A Maritime Union's Hidden History of Gay-Straight and Interracial Solidarity"  which also includes some drawings from crew members back in the day.

also enjoyed this doco about Fred Paterson, which u can watch for five bucks on Vimeo. Paterson is a Queenslander who was the only commie ever elected to australian parliament, and is mentioned in that 'right-wing queensland' piece. 

drew this logo for the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History. u can have a look at what they're about here: https://labourhistory.org.au 

they have a conference coming up later in the year in Bendigo which im looking forward to heading along to.

alright i might leave it there cos my computer is rly hot, absolutely shitting itself!!!! thanks again for the support, means alot <3