The Australian Tramway and Motor Omnibus Employees' Association [1] was an Australian trade union, in operation from 1910 to 1950 and from 1950 until 1993. It was founded as the Australian Tramway Employees Union, but was renamed to include bus employees in 1934. [2] [3]
The union was deregistered on 16 March 1950 for having "repudiated arbitration and decisions of a constituted authority" due to the actions of the Victorian branch in the 1950 Victorian tramway strike. [4] The strike ended on 26 April, with one of the conditions being that the Tramways Board would not oppose re-registration. It was then re-registered in December 1950, despite objections from the City of Brisbane and six rival unions, including the Transport Workers' Union. [5] [6]
On 15 May 1969 Clarrie O'Shea, the Victorian State Secretary of the union, was jailed by John Kerr for contempt of the Industrial Court after he disobeyed a court order that his union pay $8,100 in fines, under the penal sections of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. This triggered a major national strike to demand "Free Clarrie and repeal the penal powers". On the sixth day, O'Shea was released when the fines were paid by a man who claimed to have won the New South Wales lottery. [7]
The union merged with the Australian Federated Union of Locomotive Employees, the National Union of Rail Workers of Australia and the Australian Railways Union to form the Australian Rail Tram and Bus Industry Union in 1993. [2]
The Australian labour movement began in the early 19th century and since the late 19th century has included industrial and political wings. Trade unions in Australia may be organised on the basis of craft unionism, general unionism, or industrial unionism. Almost all unions in Australia are affiliated with the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), many of which have undergone a significant process of amalgamations, especially in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The leadership and membership of unions hold and have at other times held a wide range of political views, including communist, socialist and right-wing views.
The 1951 New Zealand waterfront dispute was the largest and most widespread industrial dispute in New Zealand history. During the time, up to twenty thousand workers went on strike in support of waterfront workers protesting against financial hardships and poor working conditions. Thousands more refused to handle "scab" goods. The dispute was sometimes referred to as the waterfront lockout or waterfront strike. It lasted 151 days, from 13 February to 15 July 1951. During the strike, the Watersiders' Union was deregistered and its funds and records were seized, and 26 local watersiders' unions were set up in its place.
The 1913 Australian referendum was held on 31 May 1913. It contained six referendum questions and was held in conjunction with the 1913 federal election.
The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist–Leninist) is an Australian communist party which describes its ideology as being influenced by the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Ted Hill. The party was formed in 1964 by former leading figures of the Communist Party of Australia.
The 1912 Brisbane General Strike in Queensland, Australia, began when members of the Australian Tramway and Motor Omnibus Employees' Association were dismissed when they wore union badges to work on 18 January 1912. They then marched to Brisbane Trades Hall where a meeting was held, with a mass protest meeting of 10,000 people held that night in Market Square.
Clarence Lyell O'Shea, more commonly known as Clarrie O'Shea (1906–1988), was the Victorian State Secretary of the Australian Tramway and Motor Omnibus Employees' Association who was jailed in 1969 by Sir John Kerr for contempt of the Industrial Court when he disobeyed a court order that his union pay $8,100 in fines, under the penal sections of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act.
The Australian Rail Tram and Bus Industry Union (RTBU) is an Australian trade union representing rail, tram and bus workers. The RTBU is affiliated with the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and the Australian Labor Party (ALP).
The Mudginberri abattoir was the focus of a major industrial relations dispute from 1983 to 1985 in Australia's Northern Territory which was notable for being the first successful use of legal sanctions against a union since the gaoling of Victorian Tramways union leader Clarrie O'Shea in 1969. The successful prosecution of the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union (AMIEU) under section 45D of the Trade Practices Act was seen by the National Farmers Federation and the developing New Right in and outside the Liberal Party of Australia as a breakthrough in a campaign to break the power of the unions and introduce contract employment.
Railway Unions in Australia organised labour of railway employees in Australia operated under federal and State awards - this is a partial list of known unions. Many of the unions amalgamated over time, creating a complex trail of ancestry for some of the later unions.
Hector Hercules Bell CBE was an Australian contractor, municipal councillor, and tramway administrator. Following an initially itinerant working life, Bell married and became a successful businessman, later being elected as a councillor to Richmond City Council. Bell was appointed to the board of the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board (MMTB) in 1919, and became the MMTB's second chairman in 1936, a position he held until 1949. Under Bell, the MMTB converted the remaining cable trams to electric trams or buses, increased the MMTB's usage of buses, and work towards modernising the tram system, while returning strong surpluses. Bell was primarily a supporter of electric trams advocating their advantages over buses. During his career he ran for a seat on the Victorian Legislative Council, and was occasionally accused of unethical behaviour.
The Rail, Tram and Bus Union Victorian branch or RTBU Victoria is the state branch of the RTBU in Victoria. Originally formed in 1993 as the Victorian branch of the Public Transport Union and renamed the RTBU in 1998, the RTBU Victoria today represents nearly 8000 members across Rail Operations, Tramways, Locomotive, Infrastructure and Administrative areas of Victoria's public transport industry.
Federated Amalgamated Government Railway & Tramway Service Association v NSW Rail Traffic Employees Association, known as the Railway Servants Case, is an early High Court of Australia case that held that employees of State railways could not be part of an interstate industrial dispute under the conciliation and arbitration power, applying the doctrine of "implied inter-governmental immunities". The doctrine was emphatically rejected by the High Court in the 1920 Engineers' Case, and in 1930 the High Court upheld the validity of an award binding on state railway authorities.
The Forest Products, Furnishing and Allied Industries Industrial Union of Workers was a trade union in Western Australia.
R v Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration; Ex parte BHP, was an early decision of the High Court of Australia concerning the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration in which the High Court controversially, granted prohibition against the Arbitration Court to prevent it from enforcing aspects of an industrial award. The High Court held that the Arbitration Court had gone beyond settling the dispute that had been submitted to it and in doing so had made a jurisdictional error.
The Australian Federated Union of Locomotive Employees (AFULE) is an Australian trade union representing railway workers. It was formerly a national union which largely merged into the Australian Rail Tram and Bus Industry Union in 1992; however, the Queensland division continued as a separate union active only in that state.
The National Union of Rail Workers of Australia (NUR) was an Australian trade union representing railway industry workers which operated from 1938 until 1993.
The Australian Transport Officers' Federation (ATOF) was an Australian trade union representing salaried officers in the transport sector, particularly in the rail and airline industries. It existed from 1924 until 1991, and was previously known as the Federation of Salaried Officers of Railways Commissioners (1924–1947) and the Australasian Transport Officers Federation (1947–1978). The union had a policy of supporting conciliation and arbitration and against strike action until 1970.
The Building Workers' Industrial Union of Australia was an Australian trade union covering workers in the construction industry.
The Pulp and Paper Workers Federation of Australia (PPWF) was an Australian trade union which existed between 1913 and 1991. The PPWF represented workers in the pulp and paper industry.
The Singapore Traction Company (STC) was a tram, trolleybus and motor bus operator in Singapore from 1925 to 1971. Established as a result of the Traction Ordinance in 1925, it was initially owned by the Shanghai Electric Company. The company took over Singapore's tram network, converting it to a trolleybus network by 1927. It acquired its first omnibuses in 1929, took over "mosquito bus" service in 1933, and became independent of the electric company in 1935.