ABSTRACT
Combining the work of a number of researchers in industrial relations, labour history and human geography, this chapter examines these arguments in general and traces the historical trajectory of labour in Australian regions. Three distinct patterns appear from these Australian regions where unions have made and remade space in ways which challenge the simple power of capital to define it. These are described as 'parochial class power', 'militant-corporatist' and 'new unionism and emergent community'. In order to examine the vital issue of how New Regionalism might fit into the core concerns of unionism today, another region is examined, namely the Pilbara, where much more openly antagonistic class relations characterize local industrial relations and politics. The nature of politics in specific regions remains contested and contingent, as a product as a shaper of histories and geographies. The South Coast Labour Council has long been among the very best examples of labour shaping politics, perceptions and region in a particular space.
