JOHN CUMMIN’S MEMORIAL FUND

Raising money to lift up workers

FFTS officials attended a fundraiser to raise money for the John Cummins Memorial Fund.

After the passing of John Cummins in August in 2006 from a brain tumour, family, friends and colleagues got together to form Cummo’s Committee to keep his memory alive to honour his lifetime’s work. The Committee has set up the John Cummins Memorial Fund with the Melbourne Community Foundation (MCF) to honour John’s legacy.

Helping workers The FFTS is proud to be involved as the money raised at functions will help:

• support brain tumour patients at the Austin Hospital
• support a young student or trade union member to complete their tertiary eduction or to access higher education.

John Cummins dedicated his life to working people, in particular to construction workers for the improvement of their health and wellbeing and to advance their status. He played a leading role in the former Builders Labourers’ Federation and was pivotal to the amalgamation with the CFMEU. John was the President of the Victorian Branch of the CFMEU from 1994.

A great trade union activist

‘John was a great trade union activist, who had an unswerving commitment to the right to organise. He even went to jail for standing up for the right to enter the workplace. When he was asked at the time why he kept returning to represent workers on a site where he had been banned, he simply said, ‘he had a job to do.’ said FFTS Secretary, Leo Skourdoumbis.

ABOVE: FFTS Secretary Leo Skourdoumbis, FFTS Assistant Secretary Frank Vari and the FFTS’ Ernie Landers with Di Cummins at the fundraiser held at Collingwood Town Hall. Di hopes to honour her late husband’s lifetime of work defending working people through the John Cummin’s Memorial Fund.