The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), originally the Australasian Council of Trade Unions, is the largest peak body representing workers in Australia. It is a national trade union centre of 46 affiliated unions and eight trades and labour councils. The ACTU is a member of the International Trade Union Confederation.
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 socialist, democratic and right-wing views.
The Australian Maritime Officers Union (AMOU) is an Australian trade union that is registered with the Australian Industrial Relations Commission and affiliated with the Australian Council of Trade Unions. Its membership covers mariners as well as professional, administrative, supervisory and technical employees in the maritime industry and dependent services. The AMOU uses the services model of trade unionism.
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.
The Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC) is a representative body of trade union organisations, known as a labour council, in the state of Victoria, Australia. It comprises 43 affiliated trade unions and professional associations, and eight regional Trades and Labour Councils of Victoria.
The Sydney Trades Hall is a heritage-listed trade union building located at 4-10 Goulburn Street in the Sydney central business district, in the City of Sydney local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by John Smedley, with later additions Spain and Cosh and Minnett and built from 1888 to 1916. It is also known as Trades Hall Building. The building was built and owned by the Trades Hall Association, the original trade union affiliates who built the hall in 1888, and is now owned by Unions NSW. The property was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
The 1890 Australian maritime dispute was an industrial dispute that began on 15 August 1890 when the Mercantile Marine Officers' Association directed its members to give 24 hours notice to their employers after negotiations broke down with the Steamship Owners' Association of Victoria over longstanding pay and conditions claims. Industrial action quickly spread to seamen, wharf labourers, then gas stockers. Coal miners from Newcastle, Broken Hill, and even New Zealand were locked out after refusing to dig coal for non-union operated vessels. By September 1890, 28,500 workers were on strike.
The Queensland Council of Unions (QCU) is the peak body of trade union organisations, also known as a labour council, in Queensland, Australia.
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.
SA Unions is the peak body for trade unions in South Australia. It coordinates political, social, economic, and industrial campaigns between its affiliate members and implements the policies of the Australian Council of Trade Unions in South Australia.
UnionsWA is the peak Trades and Labour Council in Western Australia. It represents over 30 affiliated unions, which have over 150,000 members in Western Australia. The council is affiliated with the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). Since the 1980s, the UnionsWA International Committee has acted as the ACTU's representative to the Southern Initiative for Global Trade Union Rights (SIGTUR).
A labour council, trades council or industrial council is an association of labour unions or union branches in a given area. Most commonly, they represent unions in a given geographical area, whether at the district, city, region, or provincial or state level. They may also be based on a particular industry rather than geographical area, as for example, in the Maritime Council of Australia which co-ordinated the waterfront and maritime unions involved in the 1890 Australian Maritime Dispute.
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".
The Barrier Industrial Council is the trades and labour council in Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia, and surrounding areas. Formed in 1923 by 18 trade unions, the council has been unusually influential in local government, for a labour confederation. The BIC also owns the only newspaper based in Broken Hill, the Barrier Daily Truth.
The Court of Arbitration was the first court in New South Wales, a state of Australia which dealt exclusively with industrial relation disputes in the early twentieth century. Justice Lance Wright claims that it perhaps was the first court of its type in the world. The court was unique at that time as it was the first court of its type to deal with labour relations between employer and employees on a compulsory basis. Previous arbitration measures between employer and employee had been on a voluntary basis or had been based on the criminal justice system through the use of criminal penalties. The conventional economic model is that both employer and employee enjoy equal bargaining power to set wages and conditions. This asserts that both parties are able to agree on a fair market price for the cost of labour free from distortions. However, where employers or employees group together, these outcomes can be distorted particularly in “boom” or “bust” economic conditions. The purpose of the court was to change the manner in which employers and employees negotiated pay and conditions. It was an attempt to reduce the power imbalances between employer groups or employee unions that arose from using collective bargaining, and the resulting use of that market power to influence wages, and also to reduce the threat of lockout or strikes to achieve those ends.
The Public Service Association of NSW (PSA) is a union which covers employees in the government, university and related public sector in New South Wales. The union is registered under New South Wales state legislation and is affiliated with the Labor Council of New South Wales.
John Daniel FitzGerald was a politician, union official, journalist and barrister in New South Wales, Australia.
The New South Wales Typographical Association (NSWTA) was an Australian trade union which existed between 1880 and 1916. It represented compositors, skilled tradesmen responsible for typesetting in the printing trade.
The Socialist Labor Party was a socialist political party of Australia that existed from 1901 to the 1970s. Originally formed as the Australian Socialist League in 1887, it had members such as George Black, New South Wales Premier William Holman and Prime Minister Billy Hughes.
Aberdeen Trades Union Council (ATUC) is the body made up of affiliated trade union branches and organisations working in the Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire area to promote the interests of workers in the region. The ATUC provides services to affiliated branches on a wide range of industrial, social and community issues and is affiliated to the STUC. It has an office based in Aberdeen, Scotland.
