It’s not every day you see the Victorian Trades Hall Council flag at half mast, nor 175 construction workers on a city building site take a minute’s silence for a rank and file building worker who’s died. But then Neville James Kane was no ordinary worker. “Killer”, as he was nicknamed, was one of a staunch band of members who fought against the 1986 smashing of their union – the Builders Labourers Federation – by the federal and state Labor governments, aided and abetted by the union’s enemies within the labour movement.
The BLF was a well known rebel union, having built its strength on the ground through rank and file activism. Those were the days when a meeting of members could direct the leadership. As Killer recalled “...you went to a BLF branch meeting, whatever came to the floor and was voted on, sensible things, it had to be acted upon and reported back to the next meeting”.
http://www.sa.org.au/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=7275:vale-%E2%80%9Ckiller%E2%80%9D-kane-%E2%80%93-blf-stalwart&Itemid=392
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