"A necessary documentary for these historical moments of Venezuela, and the greater homeland of Latin America, since it shows what unilateral sanctions mean. The interviews with women are particularly powerful and that makes me proud as a Venezuelan woman."  - Maruvi Leonett Villaquiran, Venezuelan Filmmaker.  Filmmaker Rodrigo Acuna will discuss the film and the situation Venezuelans are facing today in the face of US military deployed off their coast and US threats, bullying and attacks.  Hosted By:   Blue Mountains Unions & Community  -  Blue Mountains Peace Collective  bluempeace@gmail.com

Join us for a film screening and submission writing workshop. Voices for the Valley is a powerful short film about the small but mighty community of Wollar, near Mudgee, who have spent over 20 years resisting the relentless damage of coal mining. It focuses on the Moolarben coal mine, NSW’s largest producing coal mine. Told through the eyes of Manjot Kaur, a young person from Mudgee, the film weaves together stories from long-time residents, young people and migrants. “It’s a story of courage, connection and what happens when we refuse to give up on the places we love.” The Independent Planning Commission is set to decide whether Moolarben is allowed to expand even further - harming Wiradjuri cultural heritage, clearing 113 hectares of koala, Regent Honeyeater and microbat habitat, and bringing mining within 100m of Munghorn Gap Nature Reserve. It would also add an estimated 64 million tonnes of climate pollution — when NSW is already failing to meet its legislated climate targets, and our communities are facing climate-fuelled disasters.  Strong public opposition right now can stop this project. Public submissions are due 17 February. We will equip you with info & tips to make a quick submission on the spot. BYO laptop if you can. FREE event, but please consider purchasing a drink or food at the bar before start time to thank The Metropole for providing a free venue to the community. This event is co-hosted by Blue Mountains Unions & Community, Green Left, and Blue Mountains Rising Tide on unceded Dharug & Gundungurra land - always was, always will be. Accessibility info: We apologise that this venue is not wheelchair friendly. There are approximately 10 steps to access the both the front and rear doors. The rear steps (off the carpark) have better handrails. More info: 0408704276  

What do we want from our criminal justice system?  The obvious answer is “justice” but what does that look like?  We know jailing is not a deterrent or reformative because the imprisonment rate has doubled under governments of both persuasions over the last thirty years and 61% of prisoners have been there before.  Who are the people in prison and why are they there?  What could be done to prevent crime and reoffending, make our communities safer and to support victims?  Why do we spend, as a nation, $6.3 billion per year on a system which fails victims and disadvantaged people, and doesn’t address the causes of crime?  Join us at Politics in the Pub –  Is Jailing Failing? to recognise the problems but, more importantly, identify and push for solutions.  A ticket is not necessary and doesn't guarantee a seat but booking a ticket allows us to contact you if there's unforeseen changes and you can also choose to be notified of future events. Media and other enquiries: D Smith 0408 238 586    Blue Mountains Unions and Community have been hosting Politics in the Pub in the Mountains since 1998.   

Join Blue Mountains Unions & Community for a special Labour Day screening of the award-winning documentary UNION! Shortlisted for the Oscars and named one of the best films of 2024 by the New York Times, New York Magazine, Rolling Stone, Indiewire, and Rotten Tomatoes, witness the incredible story of how a group of Amazon workers led by the charismatic but underestimated Chris Smalls stood up to one of the most powerful companies in the world. A gripping human drama about the fight for power and dignity and the enduring possibility of unions in today's world.  "Astounding, rebellious...brilliant" New York Times Watch the trailer & learn more here With an introduction by Blue Mountains Unions & Community & tasty food available by donation. Limited capacity. Tickets available on the door if not already sold out. On unceded Dharug & Gundungurra country.

Global trade could be all about solidarity and meeting human needs. Instead it's a game of bullies, billionaires, bullets, and embargoes. How do we stand up - as nations, as people - for something better? Join us on Cuban National Rebellion Day for a powerful discussion with world class speakers (right here in person!) over a drink or a coffee: Dr Rodrigo Acuña - journalist, filmmaker, teacher, Latin America expert Dr Pat Ranald - Australian Fair Trade & Investment Network (AFTINET) Convener. Dr Ranald has published and advocated widely on trade justince for 20 years. Unfortunately Dr Ranald is unable to come because of illness. The event is still going ahead with Dr Acuña. All welcome! Free entry but donations appreciated. Raffle & prizes. We collect your contact details when you book your ticket so we can let you know if there's any changes to the event you need to know about. You're also offered the option of being added to a mailing list for future Politics in the Pub functions. Tickets aren't necessary for admittance and don't guarantee a seat - they just help us with planning. Image credit: 'Trump' by Isaszas CCO 1.0

A plan to bring the idle Lithgow Locomotive Workshop and Yards back into operation and ignite an engineering renewal for Lithgow is the focus of this free public meeting being held at Lithgow Workies at 6 pm on Thursday 20 February. Speakers: Steve Murphy - National Secretary, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, Dr Michelle Ziebots - Transport Planning Specialist, University of Technology Sydney and Lithgow resident, Alex Claasens - National Secretary, Rail Tram & Bus Union, Mick McGrath will talk about his experience in the loco yard when it was in its heyday and what it could mean for local jobs in Lithgow today. The Lithgow Community Power Project believe it would be possible for new rail manufacturers to take possession of the site before the end of the year. A range of trades would be needed. Prospects of apprenticeships are involved and TAFE training would need to expand to the demand. Tracey Graves, a member of the Lithgow Community Power Project group, when announcing the meeting said "The rail workshops are ideal for an engineering renewal. A third of Lithgow's industrial land is idle, which is a huge wasted resource." "The railway has been part of our local history and can be part of our present and future. With the loco yard and workshop open again it can pave the way for local industry to take up the challenge. We've identified government funding mechanisms at state and Federal level to get the project moving." "What it needs now is a community push to get the government moving. The workshops could be echoing to the sound of multiple trades working on rail jobs by the end of 2025." Tickets don't reserve seats, and no one will be turned away if they don't have a ticket They just help us with planning the event. We collect your contact details when you book your ticket so that we can contact you if there are any changes to the event that you need to know about. When you book we offer the option of having your data deleted from our records after the event, or added to a mailing list which will be passed on to the Lithgow Community Power Project so they can keep you up to date with the progress of the campaign and let you know if there's anything you can do to help.

As climate disasters hit our homes, businesses, transport and infrastructure, coal mines & coal fired power stations are being decommissioned at end of useful life and as energy markets change. The local community faces challenges to shape the future of jobs and the economy.  Unions call for building public transport vehicles in Australia now, and for transforming current public and freight rail transport to hybrid and electric. Lithgow locals are calling for Government to take back and use the idle Lithgow Loco Workshop - 1/4 of Lithgow's industrial land. The workshops are ideal for retrofitting freight trains for a hybrid electric future, providing many trade jobs for Lithgow and the Mountains in a very short time. Dr Michelle Zeibots is a Lithgow Local & Research Director and Lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney, Transport Research Centre. She is a transport planner, specialising in the analysis of sustainable urban passenger transport systems. Steve Murphy is the National Secretary, Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union campaigning to "Build Them Here" & "Save our Skills". BMUC - hosting Blue Mountains Politics in the Pub since 1998.

The Blue Mountains community is invited to join us as we celebrate the official launch of our Air Watch program at 11.30am, Tuesday October 1st - the start of the Bushfire season - at the Planetary Health Initiative (formerly the Katoomba Golf Course) at 33-39 Acacia Street Katoomba. Our event will acknowledge the people and organisations who have supported and participated in our project to distribute Purple Air quality monitors across the Blue Mountains, from Lapstone in the east to Lithgow, Dargan and Portland in the west. The Greater Blue Mountains is now part of a global network of publicly available, real time, air quality data collection. https://map.purpleair.com/1/mAUAQI/a10/p604800/cC4#9.65/-33.6787/150.363 Our journey began in 2017 with Doctors for the Environment speaking at a Politics in the Pub event we organised. This led to the formation of our Air Watch subcommittee. An initial 12 month trial coincided with the 2019/2020 Black Summer megafires, with about 40,000 hits to the EPA website from people seeking and finding relevant, almost real time, information about the air we breathe.   Working with Blue Mountains Planetary Health Initiative we’re now close to successfully reaching our goals with the permanent installation of monitors provided by the NSW Department of Planning and Environment. The launch date will coincide with the statutory start of the bushfire danger period for rural fire districts in NSW when our normally pristine air can quickly become dangerously polluted by smoke. Air Watch's Purple Air quality monitors give the Blue Mountains' 78,000 residents, workers and 3 to 5 million/year visitors the power to make timely, informed decisions about their activities and health. It will be a reliable source of data for the scientific community. If you have any questions about this event, or the Air Watch program, you can contact either Ann-Maree McEwan on 0434 180 721 or Peter Lammiman on 0410 153 157. Ann-Maree has been deeply involved in this project and Peter has been working on it from the very beginning. You can help us organise this event by booking a free ticket to RSVP, but you won't be turned away if you don't have a ticket.

How can we have a tax system to benefit most Australians? Under Australia's tax system the rich have been getting richer and the poor have been getting poorer for years. Although we're one of the wealthiest countries in the world the current cost of living crisis means many Australians are struggling to pay their rent, their mortgages, or even put food on the table.  With an urgent need for tax reform a Politics in the Pub is being staged at The Family Hotel, Parke Street, Katoomba on Saturday June 15th 4-6pm addressed by RICHARD DENNISS of The Australia Institute and MICHAEL WHAITES of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association.  Admission to the event is free and Richard and Michael will take questions from the floor after their opening remarks. For further information contact event organisers Peter Lammiman (0410 153 157) or Deb Smith (0408 238 586) of Blue Mountains Unions & Community. Dr Richard Denniss is the Executive Director at The Australia Institute. He is a prominent Australian economist, author and public policy commentator, and previously an Associate Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy at ANU. The Australian Financial Review listed Richard Denniss and Ben Oquist of The Australia Institute on their 'Covert Power' 2018 list of the most powerful people in Australia. Prior to his appointment at The Australia Institute, Denniss was Senior Strategic Advisor to Australian Greens Leader Senator Bob Brown and was also Chief of Staff to Senator Natasha Stott-Despoja, former Leader of the Australian Democrats. He was also a Lecturer in Economics at the University of Newcastle. He writes regular columns in the Australian Financial Review and the Guardian as well as regular essays for The Monthly. He publishes regularly in academic journals and has written 6 books including Affluenza: When Too Much is Never Enough (with Clive Hamilton), An introduction to Australian Public Policy (with Sarah Maddison), Minority Policy: Rethinking Governance When Parliament Matters (with Brenton Prosser), Econobabble: How to Decode Political Spin and Economic Nonsense, Curing Affluenza: How to Buy Less Stuff and Save the World and the June 2018 Quarterly Essay, Dead Right: How Neoliberalism Ate Itself and What Comes Next which was also adapted into a book of the same title. Michael Whaites has been a nurse since 1992 and a midwife since 1994. He is currently Assistant General Secretary of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association. In his former position of Public Services International’s Sub-regional Secretary for Oceania he led the national People’s Inquiry into Privatisation which demonstrated the negative impact of privatisation on communities and services. Another key project was the establishment of CICTAR (Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research), a global organisation exposing tax avoidance by companies involved in public services, including Australian aged care providers. Authorised by D Smith, Secretary, Blue Mountains Unions Council Inc

Thomas Mayo and Kerry O'Brien meet with our local community and MC Dr Lana Leslie to find answers to your questions about the Voice to Parliament. Tickets are almost fully booked, but, if you miss out, we have hired an overflow room where there will be "streaming only" of the event, with no interaction with the speakers. Seats are limited and some seats will be only available on a "walk in/first come first serve" basis. Blue Mountains Unions & Community proudly supports an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Voice to be enshrined in our Constitution because it will: Recognise the unique position of Indigenous peoples as the First Australians. Guarantee Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as first nations people of a say in the laws that directly affect them. Help to close the gap in health, wealth & education. Hasten reconciliation by helping Australia to becoming a fairer and more just society. The Voice to Parliament Handbook by Thomas Mayo and Kerry O'Brien, with cartoons by Cathie Wilcox can be purchased from Megalong Books via this link, or from The Turning Page Bookshop in Springwood. You can read the Uluru Statement via this link. Please note that Springwood Festival is on at the same time. Road closures will limit parking and it's best to come by train. You can download a copy of the road closures map via this link. We collect your contact details when you book your ticket so that we can contact you if there are any changes to the event that you need to know about. When you book we offer the option of having your data deleted from our records after the event, or added to a mailing list for future Politics in the Pub functions. Authorised by D Smith, Secretary, Blue Mountains Unions Council Inc, 52-52A Great Western Hwy, Mount Victoria, NSW, 2786.  

Local people’s experience of the Housing Crisis. How did we get here? How do we find solutions? How can Tenants Rights be improved? Current Housing Crisis Campaigns. Speakers:                                   Cherie Brandon:   Blue Mountains Women’s Health & Resources Centre (BMWH&RC) Sue Wildman:        From "Somewhere to Live" Ben Connor:         Tenant Advocate (Previously advertised speaker Dr Jenna Condie has sent her apologies.) Blue Mountains Unions & Community For more details contact Peter (02) 4782 7302 Authorised: D Smith, Secretary Blue Mountains Unions Council Inc ABN 91557766185 bmucinc@gmail.com  

BMUC members will be joining Action for Public Housing in a rally at Sydney Town Hall. We'll be travelling as a group in the second last carriage of the train to Sydney. See the schedule below for the train timetable so you can join us. Check the Transport NSW website for up to date information about travel alerts, track work and accessibiltiy. NSW is facing a severe housing crisis. Rents have risen by nearly 20% in Sydney in the past 12 months and more in many regional areas. Public housing waiting lists have grown by 15% while the stock of public housing grew by less than 1%. Homelessness is rising around the country while more than a million homes sit empty on any given night. In Sydney renters have had weekly rents climb by 23.7% in the last 12 months and it continues to rise. As a result of continuing interest rate increases some 300,000+ mortgage holders are at risk of defaulting on their loans. Some face homelessness. Shamefully, 1 million properties are empty on any given night. 122,494 people are homeless every night based on ABS 2021 figures and the number grows weekly. The Albanese Government’s Housing Australia Future Fund will barely scratch the surface, aiming to fund homes for just 12% of households currently on a public housing waiting list.  Instead of developing a public housing plan to support the vulnerable, the new ALP Minns-led NSW government will continue with the Liberal Party plan to demolish public housing in Waterloo and Wentworth Park Road, Glebe.  The plans will result in replacement of some of the public housing lost, however private housing will dominate the redevelopments.    The public and social housing waiting list across Australia is more than 150,000 and rising. When you include people living in housing stress, the actual need for public housing is over 600,000 homes. This number continues to grow as the housing crisis and homelessness continues to rise.  The problem is governments treating housing like a commodity. But we need housing for people, not for profit. On June 17, 1pm, at Sydney Town Hall join Action for Public Housing, a group of public housing tenants, homelessness advocates, unions and anti-poverty groups for a Rally to demand: Housing for People, Not Profit.  We are demanding: Freeze and lower rents and end no-grounds evictions now! Build more public housing. Eliminate homelessness and the waiting list and make public housing a genuine alternative to the private rental market. Stop privatising public housing. Don’t demolish -- repair, refurbish and renovate public housing.