CUB ‘will hate this mural’: Melbourne artist talks about his recent work

Since their sacking 18 weeks ago, maintenance workers have kept a protest camp outside their former workplace, the Carlton United Brewery in Abbotsford. For months, they’ve battled Melbourne’s persistently frosty weather and built the site into an impressive symbol of their determination to stick it out until they win.

A few weeks ago union activists let me know that the camp was looking for people to create street art to adorn the shipping containers that had been donated by the Maritime Union of Australia. They thought that murals would help inspire those involved to continue their defiance of the brewery’s aggressive restructuring.

I jumped at the chance and began some sketches straight away. I wanted to display a profit-guzzling CUB boss hiding in a shipping container, while a unionist’s hand pulls back a façade to reveal the bosses’ activity. The workers at the site loved the idea, and enthusiastically supplied all the materials necessary to pull it off.

It’s not very often that you find genuine support for a large public mural that directly depicts the conflict between workers and bosses. “CUB, they’ll hate this mural”, was the kind of laugh coming from several of the sacked CUB workers while I was painting.

As the work was being created, we shared stories of class warfare, and talked about how rare it is in Melbourne to see a mural about workers or unions. Maybe this one will help change that.