Last year, RW hosted a speaking tour by the Federation of Cuban Women in July, and then FSP and RW participated in the explosive three-day protests against the World Economic Forum in September. By then, we could truly envision what it would be like to have a socialist feminist centre from which to organise. So in October, when I took some holiday leave, we knew exactly what we wanted. Hexatec, a computer chain based in Hong Kong, went broke and disappeared. Its modern Brunswick storefront afforded us the perfect location.
Trams run past the door, two train stations are close by, and security is excellent.
The place was bought by a competitor, which announced this past October that it intended to close the plant and move its manufacturing equipment out of state. A strong community campaign is backing the unionised employees, who have declared that they will occupy the building to stop the removal of machinery. Brunswick is a workingclass, multicultural suburb with proud radical traditions going back to the 1920s. Sydney Road, a lively thoroughfare, is lined with small businesses, many run by proprietors who are Italian, Greek, Turkish, Arabic, Somali or Vietnamese. Brunswick also includes a strong queer community, which links it with the heavily gay neighbourhoods of Thornbury and Northcote just across the Merri Creek.