Federated Ironworkers' Association of Australia | |
 | |
| Merged into | Federation of Industrial Manufacturing and Engineering Employees |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1908 |
| Dissolved | 1991 |
| Location |
|
| Affiliations | ACTU, ALP |
The Federated Ironworkers' Association of Australia (FIA) was an Australian trade union which existed between 1911 and 1991. [1] It represented labourers and semi-skilled workers employed in the steel industry and ironworking, and later also the chemical industry.
The Federated Ironworkers' Assistants' Association of Australia was formed on 25 September 1908 at a meeting held at the Sydney Trades Hall, attended by delegates from several small state-based unions from New South Wales and Victoria, including the Amalgamated Ironworkers' Assistants' Union and the Amalgamated Society of Ironworkers' Assistants of Victoria. The newly formed FIA expanded its representation to Queensland and South Australia in the following year at its first full conference held in Melbourne in April 1909. The union received federal registration in 1911, despite objections raised by several tradesmen's craft unions, including the Federated Society of Boilermakers and the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. These unions were concerned with preserving the distinction between their skilled members and the unskilled assistant ironworkers. The FIA resisted limiting their membership to assistant ironworkers following its recent amalgamation in January 1911 with the Eskbank Ironworkers' Association of Mill and Forge Workers, which represented workers at the G. & C. Hoskins steel mill at Lithgow. [2]
Starting from a membership of approximately 5000 the union grew rapidly during World War I and also amalgamated with several smaller unions to reach a membership of close to 10,000 by the early 1920s, approximately 10 percent of total union membership in the Australian metal industry. Half the union's membership was from New South Wales, which was divided up into several branches, including Sydney, Lithgow, Newcastle and Granville. A new branch was formed in 1917 to represent ironworkers in the shipbuilding industry in Balmain. [2]
The FIA became increasingly militant during the first two decades of its existence, influenced by the debate over conscription in World War I, to which it was opposed, and the Australian General Strike of 1917, which involved 3000 New South Wales ironworkers. During this period the FIA became influenced by the radical left-wing political ideas of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and in 1919 held a referendum over whether to affiliate to the proposed general union, the One Big Union (OBU). The proposal received 60 percent support from the membership, particularly in Sydney, but was not adopted by the 1920 Federal Council of the union. [2]
During the 1930s the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) became heavily influential within the union. In 1936 Ernie Thornton, a member of the CPA's central committee, was elected part-time general secretary. Following the recovery of the economy in the late 1930s the position was made full-time and Thornton moved to Sydney, where he strengthened communist influence within the FIA. [3]
Thornton's leadership of the FIA was threatened in the 1949 union elections when the Balmain branch, backed by the Labor Industrial Groups, ran a rival ticket headed by Laurie Short. Thornton won but Short took the case to the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, which found that "persons unknown" had rigged the ballot, leaving Short as National Secretary. Thornton resigned in 1950 to become Australasia's representative at the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) liaison bureau in Peking, but he was left without a job when the Australian Council of Trade Unions withdrew recognition of the WFTU. The FIA refused to accept him back and Thornton was employed full-time by the Communist Party. [3] Laurie Short, a staunch anti-communist, was national secretary of the union from 1951 to 1982. [4]
In 1983, FIA unsuccessfully sought re-affiliation with the Labor Party, which it had severed during the Australian Labor Party split of 1955. The union ultimately rejoined the Labor Party through its merger with the ALP-affiliated Australian Workers Union (AWU) in 1993.
The union underwent several amalgamations, absorbing the Arms, Explosives and Munitions Workers' Federation in 1943, and later the Federated Artificial Fertiliser and Chemical Workers' Union of Australia in 1975, extending the union's coverage to the chemical industry.
The FIA merged with the Australasian Society of Engineers in 1991 to form the Federation of Industrial Manufacturing and Engineering Employees. This new union absorbed several small manufacturing unions before itself merging into the Australian Workers Union in 1993. The AWU continues to represent workers covered by the FIA.
The Communist Party of Australia (CPA), known as the Australian Communist Party (ACP) from 1944 to 1951, was an Australian political party founded in 1920. The party existed until roughly 1991, with its membership and influence having been in a steady decline since its peak in 1945. Like most communist parties in the west, the party was heavily involved in the labour movement and the trade unions. Its membership, popularity and influence grew significantly during most of the interwar period before reaching its climax in 1945, where the party achieved a membership of slightly above 22,000 members. Although the party did not achieve a federal MP, Fred Paterson was elected to the Parliament of Queensland at the 1944 state election. He won re-election in 1947 before the seat was abolished. The party also held office in over a dozen local government areas across New South Wales and Queensland.
The Australian Workers' Union (AWU) is one of Australia's largest and oldest trade unions. It traces its origins to unions founded in the pastoral and mining industries in the late 1880s and it currently has approximately 80,000 members. It has exercised an outsized influence on the Australian Trade Union movement and on the Australian Labor Party throughout its history.
James Robert McClelland was an Australian lawyer, politician, and judge. He was a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and served as a Senator for New South Wales from 1971 to 1978. He briefly held ministerial office in the Whitlam government in 1975 as Minister for Manufacturing Industry and Minister for Labor and Immigration. He later served as the inaugural Chief Judge of the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales from 1980 to 1985, as well as presiding over the 1984 McClelland Royal Commission into British nuclear tests in Australia.
The Australian Services Union is a trade union representing workers in a variety of industries.
Michael George Forshaw is an Australian politician who served as a member of the Australian Senate for the state of New South Wales from May 1994 to June 2011, representing the Australian Labor Party.
The Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union (FSPDU) was an Australian trade union which existed between 1900 and 1993. It represented labourers in the shipbuilding industry, covering "mostly work associated with chipping, painting, scrubbing [and] cleaning [ships], working in every size of tanks, cleaning boilers, docking and undocking vessels, and rigging work".
Lawrence Louis Sharkey, commonly known as Lance Sharkey or L. L. Sharkey, was an Australian trade unionist and communist leader. From 1948 to 1965 he served as the secretary-general of Communist Party of Australia (CPA). Sharkey was an orthodox stalinist throughout his political career, closely following the prevailing Soviet line in each major turn of policy.
Edward Grayndler was an Australian trade unionist and politician. He served as general secretary of the Australian Workers' Union (AWU) from 1912 to 1941, the longest term in the union's history.
Cesar Melhem is a former State Secretary of the Victorian Branch of the Australian Workers' Union (AWU), and a former Member for Western Metropolitan Region in the Legislative Council, Parliament of Victoria, between 2013 and 2022.
Laurence Elwyn Short was an Australian trade union leader and leading figure in the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Short was the national secretary of the Federated Ironworkers' Association (FIA), now part of the Australian Workers' Union, from 1951 to 1982.
Nick Origlass was an Australian Trotskyist who served as mayor of Leichhardt in Sydney.
The Australian Labor Party split of 1955 was a split within the Australian Labor Party along ethnocultural lines and about the position towards communism. Key players in the split were the federal opposition leader H. V. "Doc" Evatt and B. A. Santamaria, the dominant force behind the "Catholic Social Studies Movement" or "the Movement".
Federated Marine Stewards and Pantrymen's Association of Australasia was an Australian trade union established in 1884, and existing as a federal union from 1909 to 1988. The association represented marine stewards and stewardesses, marine pantrymen and crew attendants. The union operated a closed shop, with all workers employed in the industry members of the union, and operated on a 'no OK card - no job' principle.
Ernest Thornton was a British-born Australian trade union leader.
Tom Nicholson Pearce Dougherty, was an Australian trade union official and a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council. As National Secretary of the Australian Workers Union (AWU) from 1944 to 1972, he was one of the most powerful figures in the Australian labor movement and the Labor Party.
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.
The Federated Moulders' (Metals) Union of Australia (FMMUA) was an Australian trade union which existed between 1899 and 1983. It represented moulders – skilled tradesmen who fabricated the moulds for casting metal products in foundries. In spite of only organising within a single skilled occupation, which kept total membership low, the vital position of moulders in major industries such as mining, manufacturing and the railways, ensured that the union remained industrially powerful with a reputation for being highly militant.
Paul Joseph Hugh McDermott is an Australian politician who was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as the State Member for Prospect for the Labor Party at the 2015 New South Wales state election. Prior to entering Parliament, he had a career as an international lawyer and university academic.
The Waterside Workers' Federation of Australia (WWF) was an Australian trade union that existed from 1902 to 1993. After a period of negotiations between other Australian maritime unions, it was federated in 1902 and first federally registered in 1907; its first general president was Billy Hughes.
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.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
