Sydney, Australia, is established as the location of the film and the narration introduces the film’s premise and establishes the filmmaker as the story-teller.

American singer Paul Robeson delivers a stirring rendition of 'Ol' Man River' for construction workers at the Sydney Opera House.

Jack Mundey (1929–2020) became a national figure in the early 1970s when he led the Builders' Labourers Federation's famous 'green bans'.

Zelda D'Aprano (1928–2018) spent much of her life as a working-class crusader for women's rights.

This clip is from the NFSA Restores digital restoration of Rocking the Foundations (Pat Fiske, Australia, 1985). You can rent the full film from the 

The Great Strike is a rare censored film documenting one of Australia’s largest industrial conflicts.

The NFSA is proud to announce that its reconstruction of the censored 1917 film The Great Strike has been inscribed in the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register.

This sequence describes the impact of the 1960s development of the Sydney skyline on the work of labourers building its new skyscrapers. Summary by Susan Lambert.

This powerful sequence shows the violent clashes between the government and developers planning Sydney’s large-scale re-development and those that opposed it – the unionists, residents, conservatio

This clip examines the situation for women in the 1930s Depression when many were forced to work as the men in their families were unemployed.