Australian Workers' Union

Australian Workers' Union (AWU)
purpose	labor union
Chair:	Paul Howes
Establishment date:	1894
Number of members:	135,000 (2011)
Seat :	Sydney
Website:	http://www.awu.net.au/

The Australian Worker 'Union (AWU) (German: Australian Workers' Union ) is one of the oldest and largest trade unions in Australia and it has great importance and influence in the Australian trade union movement and on the politics of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). In Australia she is politically assigned to the right wing of the ALP.

Organizational structure

In 2011 the AWU had a membership of 135,000 and had 45 branches with 200 employees.

Their organizational structure is geared towards the national, regional and industrial sectors. Each member is organized in a regional and industry-related union. Every four years the AWU members elect their representatives at regional and national level, the national secretary, assistant secretary and president. The members also elect board directors from national and regional trade unions. The AWU's headquarters are in Sydney .

The AWU has members and influence in the ALP, is a member of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), the International Metalworkers Federation , the International Union of Foodworkers and the International Transport Workers Federation . The elected President is currently (2011) Bill Ludwig and National Secretary is Paul Howes.

The AWU originally published magazines: The Australian Worker in New South Wales and The Worker from 1890 in Brisbane . In 1974 the two magazines were merged into one magazine, The Australian Worker .

history

1886 to 1900

William Guthrie Spence and David Temple founded the Australasian Shearers Union (ASU) on June 16, 1886 in Ballarat in 1884 . In 1887, several unions joined forces in the Amalgamated Shearers Union of Australia (ASUA) - which in 1889 formed the largest union in Queensland , which from 1888 to 1890 also expanded to New South Wales , Victoria and South Australia . In 1890, an ASU conference decided that its members would not cooperate with unorganized sheep shearers and led the four-month sheep shearers strike in 1891. In 1890, the ASU merged with the Trades Halls in New South Wales and Victoria . ASU Queensland joined the Australian Labor Federation strike in solidarity in the maritime strike from August to November in 1890 . In February 1891 the Queensland Shearers Union and the Queensland Workers Union merged and from this union the Australian Workers Union (AWU) emerged in 1894.

After the first Australian sheep shearers' strikes, as well as the Broken Hill strike in 1892, were unsuccessful, the Australian labor movement radicalized and when there was a sharp drop in wages for the sheep shearers in 1894, one of the toughest strikes in the history of Australia developed Second Shearer's Strike (1894). The first strikes of the early Australian labor movement, driven by economic demands and unsuccessful, led to the politicization of workers and so active trade unionists founded the Australian Labor Party in 1891 , over which the AWU had influence.

In Australia's first major economic crisis in 1895, the number of members in the AWU fell from 17,000 to 7,000. As the trend continued, AWU closed its Queensland offices and relocated its main office to Sydney . In 1899, the AWU was the first Australian union to present its ideas at a Political Labor League Conferences and was asked to establish a union in New South Wales .

1901 to 1945

In 1901, the Commonwealth of Australia emerged from the British colonies of Australia, today's federal state. An arbitration chamber was introduced with the Commonwealth that must be consulted in collective labor disputes. The AWU made frequent use of this arbitration institution and received a prize from the arbitration chamber, the Commonwealth Arbitration Court . Since the AWU mainly appealed to the Arbitration Chamber in conflicts, the AWU did not join the Australian Council of Trade Unions for many years .

In 1902 there was a sheep shear strike led by the Machine Shearers Union (MSU). In the course of this strike the membership of the AWU rose to 14,000 and in 1904 the AWU merged with the MSU to form AWU-Queensland and increased its membership to 30,000.

In 1916–1917, the AWU was involved in campaigns against the introduction of conscription in Australia . At the time, Billy Hughes was Prime Minister of Australia, a right-wing member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Large parts of the ALP were against conscription, Hughes left the ALP because of this conflict and joined the Nationalist Party of Australia and thus remained in government. In 1917 there was a strike with the participation of the AWU against the introduction of conscription in New South Wales.

In 1917 the membership of the AWU rose to 86,000 members through the merger with the Federated Mining Employees 'Association of Australia' '(FMEA), a miners' union. The years from 1917 to 1923 were determined by the dispute over the establishment of an umbrella organization for all trade unions, which was to be founded after the experiences of the First World War . This did not succeed, instead the Council of Trade Unions was formed in 1927 .

During the Great Depression in the 1930s, AWU was the largest union in Queensland with 53,000 members. The ALP came to power in 1929, split after a controversy over overcoming the economic crisis and the conservative Nationalist Party of Australia came to power. During the Great Depression, the AWU was the largest union in Queensland with 53,000 members.

During the Second World War in 1942, the AWU opposed the introduction of conscription and was in a dissent against the ALP-led government of Prime Minister John Curtin , who was originally a staunch opponent of conscription in Australia during the course of the Second World War Changed view. As a result, Australian conscripts were also sent to the war abroad, but limited to a deployment in the Pacific region.

1949 to 2011

In the post-war years, the Australian labor movement was inspired by socialist ideas. In 1949 the Australian coal mine strike began for the 35-hour week , for 30 shillings more wages and for a secure pension, behind which ALP Prime Minister Ben Chifley suspected the Communist Party of Australia , which was strong among the strikers and in the Australian labor movement Had influence. Fearing the ALP would lose power, he used the military to break the strike and arrested some of the leaders. This crackdown on striking workers and the Cold War climate , exploited by Robert Menzies of the Conservative Liberal Party of Australia , resulted in the ALP losing the 1949 election.

When the project to build the Snowy Mountains Dam began in 1949, AWU was dedicated to organizing the many foreign workers who came to Australia.

In 1954, the right wing of the ALP split off, first forming the Democratic Labor Party (Anti-Communist) , which was later renamed the Democratic Labor Party and had a certain importance in the 1960s and 1970s, as the ALP was part of it in numerous cases prevented the formation of a regional or federal government.

In 1956, the sheep shearers did not accept the fact that their wages were reduced by about 50%, which the Industrial Court of Queensland had set because of falling wool prices during the Korean War . The AWU then called for a strike. Afterwards there were arguments with those who worked at low prices. After 10 months - some violent clashes between trade unionists and unorganized people - the AWU and Trades & Labor Council of Queensland reached an agreement that no non-union workers would be employed.

In 1964 the Mount Isa Mines strike took place. There was a dispute between the management of the Mount Isa Mines in Mount Isa and the AWU to withdraw an agreed bonus for mine workers. The strike began in August 1964 and lasted until January 1965. Prime Minister Frank Nicklin then declared a state of emergency on January 27, 1965, when the police broke into workers' apartments, confiscated strike material and forced the miners to return.

In 1966 the AWU became a member of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and in 1974 the merger of Brisbane Worker , Australian Worker , New South Wales AWU and Shop Assistants Union took place. In 1977 the merger of the Building Workers Industrial Union of Australia (BWIU) and the AWU in New South Wales was not successful , as was the case with the AWU-SAU.

Due to different views on the use of electrically powered shears, there was a long-lasting dispute between AWU and sheep farmers from 1979 to 1983, driven by the sheep farmers' rationalization considerations.

In 1986 there was a dispute with a subsidiary of the Rio Tinto Group who were hiring a non-union who came to be known as Robe River dispute . 1993 AWU merged with the Federation of Industrial, Manufacturing and Engineering Employees (FIMEE), after which the new trade union organization had 160,000 members. The name of the new union was initially The AWU-FIMEE , which was renamed The Australian Workers' Union in 1995 .

In 1994 the National Farmers' Federation (NFF) and the AWU came to a "peace deal" (German: "peaceful conclusion").

In 1997 BHP Steel announced that it would close Newcastle Steelworks in Newcastle in 1999, where AWU campaigned for the rights of workers and families there. In 2001 Ansett Australia went bankrupt with 15,000 workers , many of whom were organized in the AWU. Thereupon she sat down with other unions in the steel mill in a long argument for the workers.

In 2005 there was a Boeing Williamtown Dispute at the Williamtown RAAF base in Williamtown , New South Wales between AWU on a fundamental issue on collective labor law, which was denied to 25 engineers and management wanted to conclude individual employment contracts with different contents.

In 2006, the Conservative government of John Howard passed new legislation, the so-called WorkChoices , which significantly changed collective labor law through individual labor law regulations. In 2008, the new ALP government under Kevin Rudd created the Howard government laws and replaced them in 2009 with collective labor law.

In the years from 2009 the AWU, like the other Australian unions, campaigned for a regulation on maternity leave of 18 weeks, which was implemented after a 30-year campaign. In 2011 the Australian trade unions campaign to secure parental leave.

In February 2011, the AWU announced at its biennial national conference that it would campaign for the lifting of the legal ban on uranium mining in Australia in the states of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. In 2005, she had already spoken out in favor of building the four mile uranium mine .

Web links

• Official website of the Australian Workers' Union

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Australian Worker 'Union ( Memento of the original from March 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : About Us , accessed March 1, 2011  
2. ↑ Australian Workers Union ( Memento of the original from February 25, 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. . The Structure of the AWU , accessed March 1, 2011  
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Workers Australian 'Union ( Memento of the original dated November 7, 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. : Historical Timeline , accessed March 1, 2011  
4. ↑ LF Fitzhardinge: Hughes, William Morris (Billy) (1862-1952) , Australian Dictionary of Biography, pp. 393-400, Volume 9, Melbourne University Press 1983. Online at Australian Dictionary of Biography , in English, accessed on Jan. March 2011
5. ↑ Robert Menzies on adbonline.anu.edu.au , in English, accessed March 1, 2011
6. ↑ Ben Chifley on adbonline.anu.edu.au , in English, accessed March 1, 2011
7. ↑ Australian Tredes Union Archives: Queensland Shearers Strike (1956) , in English, accessed March 1, 2011
8. ↑ The 1956 shearers' strike , accessed March 1, 2011
9. ^ Rory O'Malley ( Memento of June 29, 2006 in the Internet Archive ): The Eclipse of Mateship: The 'Wide Comb Dispute' 1979-85 , in English, accessed on March 1, 2011
10. ^ Anthony Benbow : Union's long battle with Hamersley Iron. Greenleft, January 21, 1998, in English, accessed March 1, 2011
11. ↑ Jenny Whittard, Mark Bray et al: (PDF; 69 kB) The Boeing Dispute at Williamstown: What Right to Bargain collectively? , in English, accessed March 1, 2011
12. ↑ Australian Workers Union ( Memento of the original from February 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : End the ban on uranium mining in Queensland: AWU conference Australian Workers' Union . February 16, 2011, in English, accessed February 28, 2011