Errol Hodder joined the Australian Workers Union (AWU) in 1955 while working in the shearing industry in western Queensland. He worked his way up becoming Queensland Branch Secretary (1982-88) and Federal AWU Secretary (1988-91). He went on to serve on the Queensland and Australian Industrial Relations Commission (1991-2003) and played an active role in the ALP following the 1980 National Executive intervention into the Queensland Branch and leading to the return of the ALP to government in Queensland in 1989.
Unionist Bob Gleeson is from Longreach, where he was a shearing contractor, grazier and staunch Australian Workers Union member. In 1962 he joined the Australian Labor Party (ALP) holding many positions within the party, standing twice for the seat of Kennedy and on the ALP's Queensland Senate ticket on two occasions. He was active through the years of reform and intervention in the party and shares his memories of those turbulent years.
Trade Unionist Darryl Noack was the North Queensland District Secretary of the Australian Workers Union (AWU) from 2008. He was an elected shop steward of the Federated Ironworkers Association from 1973-79, before serving as a delegate in 1979. He then moved to the Australian Workers Union where he served first as a representative in North Queensland in 1988, before his appointment as a full time AWU organiser in 1993. He reflects on industrial conflict, Indigenous participation and the changing nature of unionism.