act your wage (Patreon)

hello hope ur all keeping well

i recently read two facts that shook me, Labor Notes, who are about to publish an excerpt from my book, wrote that as recently as the year 2009 mass industrial action "had all but disappeared in the United States—indeed, that year witnessed the fewest number of major strikes, *five* in total, since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking labor conflicts." An insane stat made heartening when u consider the kind of wave happening over there right now.

the other almost incomprehenisble stat came out of the Climate Council's research, finding recently that considering australia is one of the sunniest and windiest countries on earth, it holds enough renewable energy to power the country 500 times over. I am trying to make a drawing out of that cos the stat stuck in my head like a pop songs chorus !!!!

Flat Out are running this 'Homes Not Prisons' campaign to stop the expansion of melbournes womens prison, and are calling for a reallocation of funding to public housing. u can follow these efforts here, including the pre state election rally they've got planned. i've done some art for them over the last year or two, but last wkend me and Nicky ran a banner and placard making workshop for them, out of our art studio in Trades Hall. we did it with donated labour / no payment cos these orgs run on the smell of an oily rag, so cheers for the $ u guys contribute that helps to do this kind of thing

if u are part of a push that cld do with some protest materials let us know cos we're open to running more of these workshops in the future, it's a positive way to get ppl together off of the fkn internet (sorry internet i know u can hear me). also we've noticed that some of the banners n placards we have made over the years are still being rolled out for demos like 5 years after we made em which is great.

we also all together made these signs for the big Abolish the Monarchy rally yesterday:

extremely weird and excellent feeling to see the above placard i designed get picked up and ran with, someone painted it on to a banner, unfurled it off some church in Northcote, and then burnt a british flag next to it lmaooooo, beautiful stuff, there's a video of it here if u want to see.

here is a new drawing for the Electrical Trade Unions youth activist crew, to celebrate their fifth year of organising around all kinds of issues, not just industrial stuff:

i drew this "public transport should be free" piece for Overland, mostly inspired by getting inordinately pissed off at an article in The Age calling for an end to melbournes free tram zone. surely spite has inspired all of the worlds best artworks!!!!!!

and the most recent piece for Overland which came out a couple of days ago, inspired once again by getting annoyed, this time by all this "quiet quitting" talk :

this is the piece i drew which is up at Overland now:

had a suprisingly good time at the Melbourne Writers Festival the other day doing a session with my friends Jeff and Lenny. if anyone wants a copy of Jeffs new book that i drew the cover for, if u click "like" on this post i will randomly choose someone to mail it to. clicking the like button also helps me know if anyone actually sees these updates, i have no idea how ppls notification settings work and whether or not anyone gets these updates hahah.
the um 'winner' of the last time i did one of these was Angelica btw, Angelica i mailed you a couple of days ago! !

a few more pieces, that u guys paid me to make:

portuguese translation of the "blame the boss if yr inconvenienced by a strike" drawing for ‘Relâmpago’ (Lightning), an antifascist sports club in Lisbon. always up for translating this kind of drawing if it'd be useful just let me know.

this one is still a rough sketch, will finish it soon. tbh full disclosure i didnt go completely unpaid for it, a nurse bought me a pint in exchange for my agreeing to draw it hahah:

'our members be unlimited' seems to be going alright, it just came out in the US, i have no idea how to help the book make a dent in such a big country where i know so few ppl. hopefully it finds its own way.
a mate of mine yesterday called the book "the childrens picture book bible, but the union version" lolol

the launches around the country have been rly nice i've enjoyed em heaps it's been so good getting lots of people together around an affirmative thing. it looks like there are gonna be a few events related to the book happening in Tasmania in the third week of november, Launceston Davenport and Hobart. if u know any good union officials or rank and file members down that way pls link us up!

i've had some friends ask if i'm rich from the book yet which is funny, for the record and just quietly, i get max $4 per copy of the book sold, or 10% of the cover price. i got a total $7000 advance for the five years work. even an advance tho, is just a *downpayment* of those $4 chunks tho - so i have to sell alotttt more copies before i even start getting the four bucks per copy sold :-[] even tho u obviously dont make a thing like this for the cash, authors cld do with getting organised, since the $ is going ~somewhere~...

which is all to say that i am now looking for a day job, which im kind of excited about. too much time sitting round drawing on my own, i am looking forward to changing it up a little.

drawing for the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, celebrating their 170th(!) year of fighting.

ok i will leave it there talk to u guys next month. feel free to forward this on to anyone u think might be interested / might be up for supporting me here.
and don't forget to click "like" if u wanna maybe get sent Jeff Sparrows new book Provocations. otherwise plz consider buying a copy it is very good!

<3 from sam