Our working life experiences pass by daily, without much thought until some event of significance causes us to discuss the matter with those close to us for support or sympathy. Because we regard such experiences as essentially private we play down their public worth and so deprive community of new found hindsights that could benefit others.

Don't Come Monday is a collection so such experiences which have been spoken aloud and recorded: oral histories documenting workers struggling with the consequences of unemployment - the bitterness of humiliation, loss of dignity, confidence and self esteem, coupled with their determination to redeem their worthiness in the eyes of loved ones and the general community.

There are thousands of such experiences, hidden by the deafening silence of the victims. This silence reflects a wrongly held notion that you cannot relate such matters because they will only fall on deaf ears as no one really cares.

The result is that not many people are aware of what is transpiring in the real world of our working lives. By not sharing our stories, we fail to communicate our feelings about such injustices, so that a new generation of workers remain unaware of the 'injury to one is an injury to all' ethos, and that working people can redress such injuries by concerted action.

Don't Come Monday is presented by the participants with all the attendant seriousness of their experiences as they perceived it happening to them at the time.

As workers have tended to take life for granted (given the relative full employment and economic stability of our post war years life, compared with the same years prior to 1939) his publication served as a timely reminder that the struggle of workers has been unending throughout the whole of the present century and will continue into the next.

The United Trades and Labor Council SA, appreciated the opportunity to undertake this oral history and dedicates it to all the 'unsung' working people who shared similar experiences but were unable to tell their story.

JKL Lesses, Secretary, SA Unions SA