View source for Australian Workers' Union

{{Short description|Trade union}}
{{More citations needed|date=January 2023}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2022}}
{{Use Australian English|date=February 2023}}

{{Infobox union
 |name                = AWU
 |location_country    = [[Australia]]
 |affiliation         = [[ACTU]], [[Australian Labor Party|ALP]], [[International Transport Workers' Federation|ITF]], 
[[International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations|IUF]], [[IndustriALL Global Union|IndustriALL]]
 |members             = {{increase}} 74,077 (as at 31 December 2023)<ref>{{cite web |title=Membership size of registered organisations – 2024 |url=https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/organisations/resources/ig005-membership-size-registered-organisations.pdf |publisher=Fair Work Commission |access-date=20 February 2025}}</ref>
 |full_name           = The Australian Workers' Union
 |native_name         = 
 |image               = 
 |founded             = {{start date and age|1886}}
 |founding_location   = [[Ballarat]], [[Victoria (Australia)|Victoria]]
 |dissolved           = 
 |merged              = 
 |headquarters        = [[Sydney]], [[New South Wales (Australia)|New South Wales]]
 |key_people          = Paul Farrow, National Secretary
 |website             = {{URL|https://www.awu.net.au/|AWU}}
 |footnotes           = known as ''AWU-FIMEE Amalgamated Union'' 1993-1995
}}
{{labor|sp=uk}}
The '''Australian Workers' Union''' ('''AWU''') is one of Australia's largest and oldest [[trade union]]s. It traces its origins to unions founded in the [[pastoralism|pastoral]] and [[mining]] industries in the late 1880s and it currently has approximately 80,000 members.

According to the moderately conservative publication, the Australian Financial Review, the AWU is one of the most powerful unions in the [[Labor Right]] faction of the [[Australian Labor Party]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Marin-Guzman |first1=David |title=Inside the union factions that rule the ALP conference |url=https://www.afr.com/news/policy/industrial-relations/inside-the-union-factions-that-rule-the-alp-conference-20181216-h19692 |website=Australian Financial Review |date=16 December 2018 |access-date=6 August 2019}}</ref>

==Structure==
The AWU is a national union made up of state branches. Each AWU member belongs to one of six geographic branches. Every four years AWU members elect branch and national officials: National President, the National Secretary, and the National Assistant Secretary. They also elect the National Executive and the Branch Executives which act as the Board of Directors for the union.

The AWU's rules are registered with [[Fair Work Australia]] and its internal elections are conducted by the [[Australian Electoral Commission]].

The AWU is affiliated with the [[Australian Labor Party]], [[Australian Council of Trade Unions]], the [[International Metalworkers' Federation]], the [[International Union of Foodworkers]] and the [[International Transport Workers' Federation]]. The current AWU National President is Marina Williams, and the National Secretary is Paul Farrow.

==Coverage==
The AWU has broad coverage over, amongst others, the following industries:<ref>{{cite web |title=Am I Covered? |url=https://www.awu.net.au/vic/industries/am-i-covered |website=Australian Workers' Union |access-date=2 November 2021}}</ref>
* Administrative and support services
* Agriculture, forestry and fishing
* Arts and recreation services
* Construction
* Electricity, gas, water and waste services
* Manufacturing
* Mining
* Public administration and safety

==History==
[[File:StateLibQld 1 68695 Australian Workers' Union Hall, Chillagoe, Queensland, ca. 1915.jpg|thumb|Australian Workers' Union Hall, Chillagoe, Queensland, ca. 1915]]
[[File:StateLibQld 1 393517 Fallon House in Bundaberg, 1953.jpg|thumb|Union building named in honour of Clarrie Fallon, 1953]]
The AWU grew from a number of earlier unions, notably the [[Australasian Shearers' Union]], founded by [[William Spence]], [[Alexander Poynton]] (OBE, an inaugural member of the Australian House of Representatives), brother Charles Poynton, and [[David Temple (trade unionist)|David Temple]] in [[Creswick, Victoria|Creswick]], [[Victoria (Australia)|Victoria]] in 1886.<ref name=Smith>Smith, Bruce A. created 20 April 2001, last modified 6 August 2010. [http://www.atua.org.au/biogs/ALE1232b.htm Trade Union Entry: Australian Shearers Union]. [[Australian Trade Union Archives]]. Retrieved 11 November 2011.</ref> This union joined with shearers' unions in [[Bourke, New South Wales|Bourke]] and [[Wagga Wagga, New South Wales|Wagga]] in [[New South Wales]] to form the [[Amalgamated Shearers Union of Australasia]] in 1887.<ref name=Smith2>Smith, Bruce A. created 20 April 2001, last modified 6 August 2010. [http://www.atua.org.au/biogs/biogs/ALE0952b.htm Trade Union Entry: Amalgamated Shearers Union of Australia]{{dead link|date=October 2016 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}. Australian Trade Union Archives. Retrieved 11 November 2011.</ref> In 1894 this union amalgamated with the [[General Labourers Union]], which had formed in 1891, to form the Australian Workers' Union.<ref name=Smith3>Smith, Bruce A. created 20 April 2001, last modified 6 August 2010. [http://www.atua.org.au/biogs/biogs/ALE0953b.htm Trade Union Entry: General Labourers Union of Australasia]{{dead link|date=October 2016 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}. Australian Trade Union Archives. Retrieved 11 November 2011.</ref>

The [[Queensland Shearers Union]], formed in 1887, and the [[Queensland Workers Union]] merged in 1891 to form the [[Amalgamated Workers Union of Queensland]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Blackmur|first=Douglas |title=Strikes: causes, conduct & consequences|publisher=Federation Press|year=1993|pages=18|isbn=1-86287-114-0|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3VlDvCY4LtYC&q=%22Queensland+Shearers+Union%22&pg=PA19}}</ref> In 1904 the AWUQ amalgamated with the AWU, to form a union with a combined membership of 34,000.

The AWU later absorbed a number of other unions in the pastoral, mining and timber industries notably the [[Amalgamated Workers Association of Queensland]] in 1913, and the [[Federated Mining Employees Association of Australia]] in 1917. Since these industries were the principal sources of Australia's wealth in the 19th century, the AWU soon became Australia's largest and most powerful union.

The defeat of the great [[1891 Australian shearers' strike|1891 shearers' strike]] and the [[1890 Australian maritime dispute|1890 Maritime strike]] led the AWU to reject direct action, and it has been a force for moderation in the Australian union movement ever since. It was a firm opponent of the [[Industrial Workers of the World]], the [[Communist Party of Australia]], NSW Premier [[Jack Lang (Australia)|Jack Lang]] and other radical forces in the Australian labour movement. For many years [[Communist]]s were banned from AWU membership. In the 1930s the Communist Party launched a rival Pastoral Workers Industrial Union, but this failed to break the AWU's grip on its membership.

The Northern Territory branch of the AWU was a central faction in the most recent worker's rebellion in Australia, the [[Darwin Rebellion]] in 1912–1918.

When the trade unions formed the [[Australian Labor Party]] following the defeat of the 1890s strikes, the AWU became a powerful influence in the party, particularly in [[Queensland]] and [[Western Australia]], and to a lesser extent in the other states. Labor state governments were heavily influenced by AWU leaders such as [[Edward Grayndler]], [[Tom Dougherty (union official)|Tom Dougherty]] and NSW AWU Secretary [[Charlie Oliver (trade unionist)|Charlie Oliver]]. Labor was in government in Queensland from 1915 to 1929 and from 1932 to 1957, and the AWU was able to exert considerable political influence through long-serving premiers such as [[William Forgan Smith]] and [[Ned Hanlon (politician)|Ned Hanlon]].

The federation of the Australian colonies in 1901 led to the establishment of the [[Australian Arbitration system]]. The AWU strongly supported arbitration as a mechanism of resolving industrial disputes without resorting to strike action. The Pastoral Industry Award, negotiated by the AWU, was the first federal award granted by the [[Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration]]. The AWU maintained its registration under state industrial systems and continues to participate in many state awards.

During the years since federation that the Australian industrial relations system has been dominated by the Court and its successors, the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and the [[Australian Industrial Relations Commission]], the AWU and its members were among that system's principal beneficiaries. The AWU remains a strong advocate of arbitration in the union movement. The AWU was not affiliated with the [[Australian Council of Trade Unions]] for many years, preferring to maintain its independent relationship with the arbitration system.

With the shift in employment from the pastoral industries to the urban manufacturing and service sectors, the AWU's political influence and power declined as the pastoral areas became less significant in terms of employee numbers. This shift led to many rural electorate areas that were influenced by the AWU and workers falling to the conservative side of politics and in particular the [[National Party of Australia|National Party]]. The split in the Queensland ALP in 1957, which resulted in Labor being in opposition for 32 years, deprived the AWU of its greatest area of influence, although it remained influential in the long-serving (1941–65 and 1976–88) New South Wales Labor governments.

In 1993 the AWU amalgamated with the Federation of Industrial Manufacturing and Engineering Employees (itself an amalgamation of the [[Federated Ironworkers' Association of Australia]] and the [[Australasian Society of Engineers]]) to form the AWU-FIMEE Amalgamated Union. In 1995 the union reverted to using the name Australian Workers' Union.

In recent years the AWU has sought to modernise and to broaden its membership beyond its declining traditional base. Today it represents workers in the metals, aviation, oil and gas, mining, construction, food processing and retail industries, as well as its traditional base in the pastoral and mining areas. Its expansion into new areas has brought the AWU into conflict with some other unions, particularly the [[National Union of Workers]] and the [[Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union]].

For many years the AWU published two newspapers, ''[[The Australian Worker]]'' in New South Wales and ''The Worker'' (founded in 1890) in Brisbane. Under the editorship of [[Henry Boote]] from 1916 to 1943 they were among the most influential union newspapers in Australia. The two papers were merged in 1974 and today ''The Australian Worker'' is published in a magazine format in association with [[Australian Consolidated Press]].

On 24 October 2017 the unions offices in Sydney and Melbourne were raided by the [[Australian Federal Police]]. The raids were on behalf of the [[Registered Organisations Commission]] (ROC).<ref name="abc-fed-raid">{{cite news |last1=Borys|first1=Stephanie |last2=Dziedzic|first2=Stephen |last3=Doran|first3=Matthew| title=Federal police raid Australian Workers' Union offices in Shorten, GetUp probe |url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-24/police-raids-at-awu-headquarters-in-sydney-melbourne/9081416 |access-date=25 October 2017 |work=ABC News |publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation |date=24 October 2017 }}</ref>

===Support for White Australia policy===
[[Melbourne Trades Hall]] was opened in 1859 with [[Labour council|Trades and Labour Council]]s and [[Trades Hall]]s opening in all cities and most regional towns in the following forty years. During the 1880s [[Trade unions]] developed among [[Sheep shearer|shearer]]s, [[miner]]s, and [[stevedore]]s (wharf workers), but soon spread to cover almost all [[blue-collar]] jobs. Shortages of labour led to high wages for a prosperous skilled working class, whose unions demanded and got an [[eight-hour day]] and other benefits unheard of in Europe.

[[File:Melbourne eight hour day march-c1900.jpg|thumb|right|[[Eight-hour day]] march circa 1900, outside Parliament House in Spring Street, [[Melbourne]].]]

Australia gained a reputation as "the working man's paradise." Some employers tried to undercut the unions by importing Chinese labour. This produced a reaction which led to all the colonies restricting Chinese and other Asian immigration. This was the foundation of the [[White Australia Policy]]. The "Australian compact", based around centralised industrial arbitration, a degree of government assistance particularly for primary industries, and White Australia, was to continue for many years before gradually dissolving in the second half of the 20th century.

The growth of the sugar industry in Queensland in the 1870s led to searching for labourers prepared to work in a tropical environment. During this time, thousands of "[[Kanakas]]" (Pacific Islanders) were brought into Australia as [[indentured workers]].<ref name="Griffiths">{{cite web
|url=http://www.philgriffiths.id.au/writings/articles/Shadow%20of%20mill.rtf
|last =Griffiths
|first =Phil
|date=4 July 2002
|title=Towards White Australia: The shadow of Mill and the spectre of slavery in the 1880s debates on Chinese immigration
|format =RTF
|publisher=11th Biennial National Conference of the Australian Historical Association
|access-date =14 June 2006
}}</ref> This and related practices of bringing in non-white labour to be cheaply employed was commonly termed "[[blackbirding]]" and refers to the recruitment of people through trickery and kidnappings to work on plantations, particularly the [[Sugar plantation|sugar cane plantations]] of Queensland (Australia) and [[Fiji]].<ref name="Willoughby">{{cite web|url=http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/federation/pdfs/multiw.pdf |last=Willoughby |first=Emma |title=Our Federation Journey 1901–2001 |publisher=Museum Victoria |access-date=14 June 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060625205722/http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/federation/pdfs/multiw.pdf |archive-date=25 June 2006 }}</ref> In the 1870s and 1880s, the growing [[Australian labour movement|trade union]] movement began a series of protests against foreign labour. Their arguments were that Asians and Chinese took jobs away from white men, worked for "substandard" wages, lowered working conditions and refused unionisation.<ref name="Markey">{{cite web
|url=http://www.highbeam.com/library/docfree.asp?DOCID=1G1:18167215&ctrlInfo=Round20%3AMode20c%3ADocG%3AResult&ao=
|archive-url=https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20171019161339/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-18167215.html
|url-status=dead
|archive-date=19 October 2017
|last =Markey
|first =Raymond
|date=1 January 1996
|title=Race and organized labor in Australia, 1850–1901
|publisher =Highbeam Research
|access-date =14 June 2006
}}</ref>

Objections to these arguments came largely from wealthy land owners in rural areas.<ref name="Markey"/> It was argued that without Asiatics to work in the tropical areas of the [[Northern Territory]] and Queensland, the area would have to be abandoned.<ref name="Griffiths" /> Despite these objections to restricting immigration, between 1875 and 1888 all Australian colonies enacted legislation which excluded all further Chinese immigration.<ref name="Griffiths" /> Asian immigrants already residing in the Australian colonies were not expelled and retained the same rights as their Anglo and Southern compatriots.

Agreements were made to further increase these restrictions in 1895 following an Inter-colonial Premier's Conference where all colonies agreed to extend entry restrictions to all [[Non-white|non-white races]]. However, in attempting to enact this legislation, the Governors of New South Wales, South Australia and [[Tasmania]] reserved the bills, due to a treaty with [[Empire of Japan|Japan]], and they did not become law. Instead, the Natal Act of 1897 was introduced, restricting "undesirable persons" rather than any specific race.<ref name="Markey" />

The British government in London was not pleased with legislation that discriminated against certain subjects of its Empire, but decided not to disallow the laws that were passed. Colonial Secretary [[Joseph Chamberlain]] explained in 1897:<blockquote>We quite sympathise with the determination...of these colonies...that there should not be an influx of people alien in civilisation, alien in religion, alien in customs, whose influx, moreover, would seriously interfere with the legitimate rights of the existing labouring population.<ref>Speech to Colonial Conference of 1897, quoted in J. Holland Rose et al., eds. ''The Cambridge History of the British Empire: Volume VII: Part I: Australia'' (1933) p 411; [https://books.google.com/books?id=B9oDAAAAYAAJ&dq=chamberlain+%22alien+in+civilisation%22&pg=PA759 full text]</ref></blockquote>

The [[Barton government]] which came to power following the first elections to the Commonwealth parliament in 1901 was formed by the [[Protectionist Party]] with the support of the [[Australian Labor Party]]. The support of the Labor Party was contingent upon restricting non-white immigration, reflecting the attitudes of the Australian Workers Union and other labour organisations at the time, upon whose support the Labor Party was founded.

[[Ted Grayndler]] general secretary of the [[Australian Workers' Union]] (AWU) (1912-1941), and [[Tom Dougherty (union official)|Tom Dougherty]] (1944-1972) supported the White Australia Policy.

The AWU abandoned its support for the White Australia policy in 1972.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://awu.net.au/our-union/history/ |title=AWU Timeline |date= |first= |last=}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://sa.awu.net.au/awu-timeline/#1559268693328-7cb21b48-b13a |title=AWU TIMELINE/ |date= |first= |last=}}</ref>

==National Secretaries of the AWU==
{{col-begin}}
{{col-break}}
*[[David Temple (trade unionist)|David Temple]] 1886–94
*[[William Spence]] 1894–1898
*[[Arthur Rae]] 1898–99
*[[Donald Macdonell (Australian politician)|Donald Macdonell]] 1899–1911
*Tom White 1911–1912
*[[Edward Grayndler]] 1912–1941
*[[Clarrie Fallon]] 1941–1943
*William "Beecher" Hay 1943–1944
*[[Tom Dougherty (union official)|Tom Dougherty]] 1944–1972
*Frank Mitchell 1972–1983
*Gill Barr 1983–1987
{{col-break}}
*[[Errol Hodder]] 1987–1991
*[[Michael Forshaw]] 1991–1994 (Jointly from 1993)
*Steve Harrison 1993–1997 (Jointly until 1996)
*Ian Cambridge 1994–1996 (Jointly)
*Vern Falconer 1997
*Terry Muscat 1997–2001
*[[Bill Shorten]] 2001–2007
*[[Paul Howes]] 2007–2014
*Scott McDine 2014–2016
*Daniel Walton 2016–2023
*Paul Farrow 2023–present
{{col-end}}

==National Presidents of the AWU==
{{col-begin}}
{{col-break}}
*[[William Spence]] 1886–94
*[[Arthur Rae]] 1895–97
*[[William Spence]] 1898–1916
*[[Frank Lundie]] 1917–1918
*[[Arthur Blakeley]] 1919–24
*[[John Barnes (Australian politician)|John Barnes]] 1924–38
*J.C. Lamont 1938–39
*[[John McNeill (Australian politician)|John McNeill]] 1939–43
*[[Herbert Johnson (Australian politician)|Vic Johnson]] 1943–47
*Bill Nicol 1947–50
*Henry "Brahma" Davis 1950–65
*Edgar Williams 1965–82
*Alan Begg 1982–89
*[[Bill Ludwig]] 1989–97 (Jointly from 1994)
*Bob Redmond 1994–97 (Jointly from 1994)
*Graham Roberts 1997–2001
*[[Bill Ludwig]] 2001–2017
*Marina Williams 2017–present
{{col-end}}

==See also==
{{Portal|Australia|Organized labour}}
* [[AWU affair]], a scandal involving the AWU Workplace Reform Association Fund in the 1990s
* [[Darwin Rebellion]], a political protest in Darwin in the 1910s

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://www.awu.net.au/ Official Website]
{{AWU Secretaries}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:1894 establishments in Australia]]
[[Category:General unions]]
[[Category:The Australian Worker]]
[[Category:Trade unions affiliated with the Australian Council of Trade Unions]]
[[Category:Trade unions established in 1894]]
[[Category:Trade unions in Australia]]
[[Category:Anti-communism in Australia]]