Labour Unions In Australia Essay

Introduction

Trade and Labour Unions have played a vital part in Australia’s history. With hard fought and won battles, the many unions across Australia have been generating better conditions for workers in many different fields. The Encyclopaedia Britannica Defines a Union as an “ … association of workers in a particular trade, industry, or company, created for the purpose of securing improvements in pay, benefits, working conditions, or social and political status through collective bargaining.”7. The Australian Bureau of Statistics defines Unions as “… organisations that represent employees in the collective negotiation of rates of pay and conditions of employment for their members”1. These definitions show that a trade/labour union is there

Although for the duration of the 19th century the movement was sporadic due to the draconian laws and employer dislike towards them and their members. Meanwhile in Australia, the first unions were formed in Sydney and Hobart, from non-convict labour, in the late 1820’s. These Unions were short lived and the union movement slowed to almost nothing until the 1850’s, which was when members of many unions fought to gain an 8hr working day. The unions continued to grow and membership numbers climbed. In 1927 the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) was

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Painters and Dockers union were a notorious syndicate, with ties to the Melbourne and Sydney underworld that operated in a nefarious fashion. They were linked to 15 murders and 28 acts of violence where death may have occurred. It was found during a royal commission into the Painters and Dockers union, that they were using government facilities to import narcotics and firearms. Their actions were condemned by Prime Minister Bob Hawke, a pro union, Labour party member, with Hawke stating that their actions were “absolutely contrary to the principles of trade