The Boilermakers and Blacksmiths Society of Australia (BBS) was an Australian trade union representing boilermakers and blacksmiths between 1965 and 1972.
Though widely described as the formation of a new union, it inherited the industrial registration of the Boilermakers' Society.
The union was associated with a "militant left-wing" group within the Metal Trades Federation.
[1][2][3][4] The BBS was the principal union involved in the 1971 Harco work-in, in which rank-and-file workers seized control of a heavy engineering factory in the Sydney suburb of Campbelltown to protest the sacking of five boilermakers.
The workers, inspired by the example of 'work-ins' at Upper Clyde Shipbuilders in the UK and French car workers during the May 68 of 1968, occupied the factory for a period of four weeks.