Tom Bramble
Encyclopedia
Tom Bramble is a long-term socialist activist and author based in Queensland
, Australia
. He is a senior lecturer in Industrial Relations at the University of Queensland
. He holds a Ph.D.
from La Trobe University
in the same field and won the University medal in Economics from the University of Cambridge
when he graduated with his BA (Honours) in 1982. Bramble has been politically active since the late 1970s and a trade unionist since the early 1980s. He is a member of the National Executive of the Trotskyist organisation, Socialist Alternative
(SA), is a regular contributor to SA's website, magazine and journal and writes a weekly blog on Australian television "Tom's TV picks - a view from the left" accessible at http://tomstvpicks.blogspot.com/.
published Bramble's book (with Rick Kuhn
) Labor's Conflict: Big Business, Workers and the Politics of Class which traced the history of the Australian Labor Party
(ALP) from its formation through to the Gillard
Government from a Marxist perspective. Australian journalist John Pilger
wrote: "In cutting through the lantana of egos, power games and betrayals, Tom Bramble and Rick Kuhn’s history of the Labor Party succeeds in rescuing a salutary story of political Australia that ought to be read by all generations". Australian National University
academic Norman Abjorensen described it as "A veritable tour de force. Not since Vere Gordon Childe’s How Labour Governs, published nearly 90 years ago, has the ALP been subjected to such a searching analysis".
In 2008 Bramble authored the book also published by Cambridge University Press: Trade Unionism in Australia: A History from Flood to Ebb Tide, a controversial Marxist analysis of the Australian labour movement
, attacking the trade union bureaucracy
and the ALP. Pilger said of the book: "Bramble has written an important and fluent reminder that nothing is gained without a fight. An essential read."
In 2003 Bramble co-edited the book published by Ashgate Publishing
: Rethinking the Labour Movement in the 'New South Africa' with Franco Barchiesi from the University of Bologna
, which analysed the South Africa
n labour movement's reaction to the African National Congress
post-apartheid. Patrick Bond
of the University of the Witwatersrand
said of the work: "Bramble and Barchiesi have gathered the toughest contemporary critiques and auto-critiques of the South African labour movement... in a manner that no scholar or activist interested in post-apartheid political economy dare ignore." Ben Fine
of the University of London
's School of Oriental and African Studies
called it "the single most important contribution to an understanding of the trajectory of the South African labour movement."
Bramble also edited the Victoria University Press
memoirs of Jock Barnes
, the New Zealand
trade unionist and has published many articles on the union movement
s in Australia, New Zealand and South Korea
. and global political economy.
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. He is a senior lecturer in Industrial Relations at the University of Queensland
University of Queensland
The University of Queensland, also known as UQ, is a public university located in state of Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest and largest university in Queensland and the fifth oldest in the nation...
. He holds a Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
from La Trobe University
La Trobe University
La Trobe University is a multi-campus university in Victoria, Australia. It was established in 1964 by an Act of Parliament to become the third oldest university in the state of Victoria. The main campus of La Trobe is located in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora; two other major campuses are...
in the same field and won the University medal in Economics from the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
when he graduated with his BA (Honours) in 1982. Bramble has been politically active since the late 1970s and a trade unionist since the early 1980s. He is a member of the National Executive of the Trotskyist organisation, Socialist Alternative
Socialist Alternative (Australia)
Socialist Alternative is a Trotskyist political organisation in Australia formed by an expulsion from the former International Socialist Organisation in 1995. It is one of the largest groups of the Australian far Left, claiming to have the largest active membership. With branches across...
(SA), is a regular contributor to SA's website, magazine and journal and writes a weekly blog on Australian television "Tom's TV picks - a view from the left" accessible at http://tomstvpicks.blogspot.com/.
Publication history
In 2010 Cambridge University PressCambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
published Bramble's book (with Rick Kuhn
Rick Kuhn
Rick Kuhn is an Australian Marxist economist, political analyst and reader at the Australian National University in Canberra. He is best known for his biographical study on Henryk Grossman, for which he won the Deutscher Memorial Prize in 2007...
) Labor's Conflict: Big Business, Workers and the Politics of Class which traced the history of the Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
(ALP) from its formation through to the Gillard
Julia Gillard
Julia Eileen Gillard is the 27th and current Prime Minister of Australia, in office since June 2010.Gillard was born in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales and migrated with her family to Adelaide, Australia in 1966, attending Mitcham Demonstration School and Unley High School. In 1982 Gillard moved...
Government from a Marxist perspective. Australian journalist John Pilger
John Pilger
John Richard Pilger is an Australian journalist and documentary maker, based in London. He has twice won Britain's Journalist of the Year Award, and his documentaries have received academy awards in Britain and the US....
wrote: "In cutting through the lantana of egos, power games and betrayals, Tom Bramble and Rick Kuhn’s history of the Labor Party succeeds in rescuing a salutary story of political Australia that ought to be read by all generations". Australian National University
Australian National University
The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...
academic Norman Abjorensen described it as "A veritable tour de force. Not since Vere Gordon Childe’s How Labour Governs, published nearly 90 years ago, has the ALP been subjected to such a searching analysis".
In 2008 Bramble authored the book also published by Cambridge University Press: Trade Unionism in Australia: A History from Flood to Ebb Tide, a controversial Marxist analysis of the Australian labour movement
Australian labour movement
The Australian labour movement has its origins in the early 19th century and includes both trade unions and political activity. At its broadest, the movement can be defined as encompassing the industrial wing, the unions in Australia, and the political wing, the Australian Labor Party and minor...
, attacking the trade union bureaucracy
Bureaucracy
A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...
and the ALP. Pilger said of the book: "Bramble has written an important and fluent reminder that nothing is gained without a fight. An essential read."
In 2003 Bramble co-edited the book published by Ashgate Publishing
Ashgate Publishing
Ashgate Publishing is an academic book and journal publisher based in Farnham, Surrey, United Kingdom. It was established in 1967 and specializes in the social sciences, arts, humanities, and professional practice...
: Rethinking the Labour Movement in the 'New South Africa' with Franco Barchiesi from the University of Bologna
University of Bologna
The Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna is the oldest continually operating university in the world, the word 'universitas' being first used by this institution at its foundation. The true date of its founding is uncertain, but believed by most accounts to have been 1088...
, which analysed the South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
n labour movement's reaction to the African National Congress
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
post-apartheid. Patrick Bond
Patrick Bond
Patrick Bond is professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where he has directed the Centre for Civil Society since 2004. His research interests include political economy, environment, social policy, and geopolitics...
of the University of the Witwatersrand
University of the Witwatersrand
The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg is a South African university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University...
said of the work: "Bramble and Barchiesi have gathered the toughest contemporary critiques and auto-critiques of the South African labour movement... in a manner that no scholar or activist interested in post-apartheid political economy dare ignore." Ben Fine
Ben Fine
For the New York Times reporter see Benjamin FineBen Fine is Professor of Economics at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies. He is the author of a number of works in the broad tradition of Marxist economics, and has made contributions on economic imperialism and social...
of the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
's School of Oriental and African Studies
School of Oriental and African Studies
The School of Oriental and African Studies is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the University of London...
called it "the single most important contribution to an understanding of the trajectory of the South African labour movement."
Bramble also edited the Victoria University Press
Victoria University Press
Victoria University Press founded in the 1970s, is the book publishing arm of Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand.It publishes new fiction and poetry and specialises in New Zealand history, biography and essays.-Sources:...
memoirs of Jock Barnes
Jock Barnes
Harold "Jock" Barnes was a New Zealand trade unionist and syndicalist, leader of the Waterside Workers Union from 1944 to 1952. He was heavily involved in the 1951 New Zealand waterfront dispute. His memoir "Never A White Flag" was published in 1998....
, the New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
trade unionist and has published many articles on the union movement
Labour movement
The term labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labour...
s in Australia, New Zealand and South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
. and global political economy.
Selected books
- Labor's Conflict: Big Business, Workers and the Politics of Class, (with Rick KuhnRick KuhnRick Kuhn is an Australian Marxist economist, political analyst and reader at the Australian National University in Canberra. He is best known for his biographical study on Henryk Grossman, for which he won the Deutscher Memorial Prize in 2007...
), Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2010. - Trade Unionism in Australia: A History from Flood to Ebb Tide, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2008.
- The Labor Party : a Marxist analysis, (with Mick ArmstrongMick ArmstrongMick Armstrong is a socialist activist and author based in Melbourne, Australia. He is one of the founding members of the Trotskyist organisation Socialist Alternative and was also one of the Austudy Five....
) Socialist Alternative, Melbourne, 2007. - Rethinking the Labour Movement in the 'New South Africa' (edited with Franco Barchiesi), Ashgate, Aldershot, 2003.
- Never a White Flag : The Memoirs of Jock Barnes, (edited) Victoria University Press, Wellington, 1998.
Selected articles
- World capitalism remains in a deep, systemic crisis, Socialist Alternative, 28 September 2010.
- The Music of Industrial Relations and the Reality of the Australian Labor Party, (with Rick KuhnRick KuhnRick Kuhn is an Australian Marxist economist, political analyst and reader at the Australian National University in Canberra. He is best known for his biographical study on Henryk Grossman, for which he won the Deutscher Memorial Prize in 2007...
) MRZine, 2 May 2007. - Whose Streets? Our Streets! Activist Perspectives on the Australian Anti-Capitalist Movement, (with John Minns) Social Movement Studies, 2004.