Because mainstream histories of Australia often render Indigenous people as invisible or describe Aboriginal people in negative terms, they often fail to recognise that Aboriginal people have been involved in the working life of Sydney for a very long time. Very few histories describe Aboriginal people as workers, producers, industrialists or taxpayers. However, soon after Invasion, Aboriginal people in Sydney were involved in work. They were sometimes paid but often were not; they were sometimes indentured, but they were always present.

From 1788 Aboriginal people worked in the grounds of the first Government House. Many of the "explorers" who surveyed the bush around Sydney and later crossed the Great Dividing Range were led by Aboriginal trackers who were familiar with the "undiscovered" country and who acted as diplomats to other Aboriginal groups. They were, in a sense, the first tour guides.

Aboriginal people also worked in the burgeoning industries around Sydney, as labourers on building sites, as wharfies and sailors, and were involved in the sealing and whaling industries.

Today local Aborigines work across a broad range of occupations and professions, in business and in government.

The railway workshops at Eveleigh were the biggest employer of Aborigines, particularly during the late nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century. Many Aboriginal people had jobs relying on manual and hard labour. Photos taken of workmen excavating the cable channel for the Darling Street tram in Balmain include Aboriginal men in the gang, providing evidence of an Aboriginal role in the development of infrastructures in and around the city. Aboriginal people worked in the Alexandria goods yard loading trains with kegs and potatoes. Many men also worked on the waterfront docks while women worked for Federal Matches in Alexandria (affectionately known as Wellington Matches because so many of the Aboriginal workers were originally from the NSW country town of Wellington).

Getting a job for Aboriginal people was one thing, being paid equal wages and getting union support was another. The relationship between unions and Aborigines was not always good. Some unionists feared that giving Aboriginal workers equal rights and pay would threaten the jobs of white workers. However, progressive left-wing unions and other workers’ groups like the Communist Party supported Aboriginal advancement from early in the 20th Century.

When Aboriginal people began to organise politically from the 1930s, there were often sympathetic white people to help in the struggle, many of them unionists. During the period from 1950 to 1967, unions and Aboriginal organisations worked closely to build momentum to the 1967 Referendum on Citizenship Rights and Commonwealth control of Aboriginal affairs. Apart from this issue, Aborigines were also prominent at May Day rallies and other protests, and unions supported submissions to the United Nations. Activism of this kind, not just in Australia, led to the UN International Covenant on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), and the recent Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Miscellaneous Workers Union of Australia was one of the six largest unions in the country in the mid-1960s and gave unfailing support to the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) sending delegates from both State and Federal branches to annual FCAATSI meetings. Organisations like the Union of Australian Women, the Federated Engine Drivers and Firemen Association, and the NSW Teachers’ Federation were all affiliates of FCAATSI. It was FCAATSI and the unions that showed Aboriginal people how to fight for rights and how to empower themselves.

Unions offered employment to Aboriginal people from remote areas of New South Wales who relocated to Sydney. They also offered support in the education sector. Scholarships at Tranby in the 1960s were financed by the Australian Workers’ Union, the Miners’ Federation of Australia, and the Waterside Workers’ Federation of Australia. They supported housing projects in both urban and remote areas. On a social level, the Builders Labourers Union of Sydney even sponsored the Redfern Aboriginal Football team.

In 1963, two Aboriginal Unionists, Ray Peckham and Monty Maloney, began their own newspaper, The Aboriginal Worker, which appealed to Aboriginal workers to "play an active part in their union". This was one of the first Indigenous Australian newspapers and almost certainly the first Aboriginal workers’ newspaper.

In more recent times the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) have lent their considerable support to Aboriginal issues such as Reconciliation and Native Title. Another Union supporting the Aboriginal rights movement was the Building Workers Industrial Union of Australia. In their journal, they celebrated the biggest ever National Aborigines Day March on July 14 1972.