Australian Council of Trade Unions

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Australian Council of Trade Unions
(ACTU)
purpose Union (umbrella organization)
Chair: Tony Sheldon
Establishment date: 1927
Number of members: ~ 1.76 million (2017)
Seat : Melbourne
Website: www.actu.org.au

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) (German: Council of Australian Trade Unions ) is the largest umbrella organization for unionized workers in Australia . Of the approximately 300 trade unions in Australia, 46 are individual trade unions in the ACTU.

ACTU is a member of the International Trade Union Confederation (IGB). In the membership list of the IGB, the membership of ACTU is given as 1,761,400 (status: November 2017).

history

ACTU was founded in the Melbourne Trades Hall in Victoria

The ACTU was founded in 1927 as the Australian Council of Trade Unions and was the first trade union organization based on the principle of a national umbrella organization ( One Big Union ). The formation of such a workers 'organization in Australia was first promoted by two unions in 1911, the Australian Workers' Union (AWU), the largest single union at the time, and the Australian Workers Industrial Union of Australia (WIUA). While the AWU advocated a reconciliation of the interests of wage labor and capital in the form of judicial arbitration commissions, the WIUA took positions of class struggle. At that time, these different views prevented an umbrella organization from being spun off from the unions. It was not until the government of Stanley Bruce founded the Australian Industrial Relations Commission in 1927 as a national organization of trade unions. At that time mainly industrial unions were united in this organization.

Forerunners of umbrella organizations at the regional level in Australia were the Victorian Trades Hall Council , which emerged in 1856, the Melbourne Trades Hall Committee and Labor Council of New South Wales , which emerged in 1870, and the Sydney Trades and Labor Council and the Inter-Colonial Trade Union Congress by 1879.

After the Second World War there were other union umbrella organizations for office and administrative employees in the private sector and for government employees, which were integrated into the ATCU in 1981.

The ACTU had and still has strong relations with the Australian Labor Party (ALP), for example the former ACTU President Bob Hawke became party chairman of the ALP and later Prime Minister of Australia and numerous members of the ATCU are represented in the parliaments.

A representative receives the Ordem de Timor-Leste from Francisco Guterres for the Australian Council of Trade Unions at the celebrations for the twentieth anniversary of the independence referendum .

Because of their help in establishing East Timor's independence from Indonesia , East Timor's President Francisco Guterres awarded the ACTU the Ordem de Timor-Leste on August 31, 2019 .

organization structure

The ACTU holds a congress every three years with around 800 delegates from the member organizations, at which 60 members are elected to the ACTU, a president, two vice-presidents, a secretary and an assistant secretary. The regional Trades and Labor Councils select delegates from among their regional unions.

aims

The objectives of the ATCU are: securing and maintaining jobs, occupational safety, equality for women, reducing working hours, entitlement to paid vacation, better working conditions, building a general pension system.

Recent past

In the statewide election of 2007, the ATCU advocated in particular that the rights of workers, the government of the Liberal Party of John Howard was limited, be withdrawn. The campaign has been running since 2005 under the title Your Rights at Work . In 2008, ACTU was committed to the 18-week paid maternity leave that Australian trade unions have been demanding for 30 years. The federal government followed this demand and this law on maternity protection came into force on January 1, 2011.

Member organizations

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Australian Council of Trade Unions ( Memento of the original dated February 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : About Trade Unions, accessed March 2, 2011  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.actu.org.au
  2. ↑ IGB Membership List , accessed on May 22, 2018
  3. ^ President of East Timor: PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC BESTOWS UPON TEN INDIVIDUALS AND ENTITIES THE ORDER OF TIMOR-LESTE , September 1, 2019 , accessed on September 3, 2019.
  4. ↑ Australian Council of Trade Unions ( Memento of the original from February 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . ACTU Congress, accessed March 2, 2011  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.actu.org.au
  5. ^ Australian Council of Trade Unions . The Australian Council of Trade Unions represents Australian workers and their families, in English, accessed March 2, 2011
  6. ↑ www.rightsatwork.com . What is Your Rights at Work? in English, accessed March 2, 2011
  7. ↑ Australian Council of Trade Unions ( Memento of the original from July 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Campaign. Paid Parental Leave, accessed March 2, 2011  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.actu.org.au