“WHEN THE NEWS of his death spread on social media, the shock and grief spread across our movement in a way I have not seen before” - Sally McManus, Secretary of the ACTU, at Andrew Casey’s funeral.
McManus's words echoed the feelings of a large group of colleagues and friends from the worlds of journalism, unionism, and the Hungarian and Jewish communities who gathered at Macquarie Park cemetery on Tuesday to farewell a man whose life and work bridged many spheres of society.
But above all, Andrew was driven by his two relentless passions, said his friend and union colleague, Uri Windt. “Social Justice and Jewish values. To him they were one and the same: fairness, humanity, and kindness matched by friendships and inclusiveness.”
Andrew pursued these passions with a networking zeal that few could equal. “He was linked In before Linked-In was invented. No wonder Facebook was his second home,” Windt added, drawing laughs of acknowledgement.
Born in Budapest, the elder son of Holocaust survivors, Andrew’s family moved to Sydney in the 1950s. Andrew was politically engaged very early in his life, his brother John observed. “When Hungarian families gathered on the weekends, the other kids played in the back yard, but he was inside arguing politics with the grownups.
“While we were in high school obsessed with sport, sexuality and TV, he was organising protests against the Vietnam War or for Aboriginal Land Rights.”
After working at the Sydney Morning Herald in the education and industrial relations rounds in the 1980s, Andrew went on to a long and varied career within the union movement.
“He was the first media officer at the ACTU and he worked for many diverse unions, which at the time was very unusual, as his position involved a high level of trust: Australian Nursing & Midwifery Federation, Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, United Voice and the Australian Workers Union. And of course, he was always an active member of his own union, the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance,” said McManus.
“Andrew embodied what we all love about our movement - what it is to be a comrade. To care about the greater good of the movement, to lift everyone up, to be generous and to show solidarity. In his actions and his words (except for the gossip) he taught generations of unionists what it is to be a comrade.”
Andrew is survived by his brother John, and his children Daniel and Hannah, and their families
READ EULOGIESEulogy by John CaseyEulogy by Sally McManusEulogy by Uri WindtEulogies by Hannah and Daniel CaseyEulogy by Michael EassonVale Andrew Casey
