Jennie George’s grey and blue enamel mug bearing a Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation sticker

Jennie George was born in Italy in 1947 and came to Australia at the age of three as a part of the wave of post-war immigration. After winning a scholarship to Sydney University to study teaching, she began her union career. She was elected as a full-time union official with the NSW Teachers Federation, and took on many roles in the union movement. She was appointed first woman President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) in 1996. This mug symbolises union leader Jennie George’s personal commitment to reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, and the importance of this issue in the 1990s.