The Australian labour movement began in the early 19th century and since the late 19th century has included industrial (Australian unions) and political wings (Australian Labor Party). Trade unions in Australia may be formed 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 unions 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.
According to ABS figures, in August 2013, there were 1.7 million members of trade unions in relation to their main job (17% of all employees). A further 4% did not know whether they were trade union members or not, while 1% were trade union members not in conjunction with their main job. Of those who were a trade union member in relation to their main job, over two-thirds (68%) had been members for five years or more. Trade union membership has steadily declined over recent years, with 2013 being the lowest proportion in the history of the ABS series.Australian Bureau of Statistics, Cat No. 6310.0: SUMMARY OF FINDINGS According to ACTU figures, the number of members of trade unions in 1983 was 2,376,900 but by 2002 it was 1,833,700,ACTU: Future Strategies - Unions Working for a Fairer Australia and declining.
The Australian Labor Party at both a federal and state/colony level pre-dates, among others, both the British Labour Party and the New Zealand Labour Party in party formation, government, and policy implementation. In particular, the 1910 federal election represented a number of firsts: it was Australia's first elected federal majority government; Australia's first elected Senate majority; the world's first Labour Party majority government at a national level; after the 1904 Chris Watson minority government the world's second Labour Party government at a national level; and the first time it controlled both houses of a bicameral legislature.
History
Early history
In 1788, the First Fleet landed in Sydney and subsequently established the colony of New South Wales as a penal colony. Working conditions were analogous to slavery, with convicts that were transported to the colony required to work, without pay, for either the colony's administration or private landholders. Others, particularly the "Kanaka" from the South Pacific islands, were either kidnapped or otherwise induced into exploitative long-term indentured service contracts.
Initially, following British laws, trade unions in Australia were suppressed, particularly under the Combination Laws of 1799 and 1800. A trade union or other association could also be regarded as illegal because of being considered a "restraint of trade". The British Master and Servant Act 1823, and subsequent updates, were generally regarded as heavily biased towards employers, and designed to discipline employees and repress the "combination" of workers in trade unions. The law required the obedience and loyalty from servants (i.e., workers) to their contracted employer, with infringements of the contract, or disobedience, subject to criminal penalties, often with a jail sentence of hard labour; and the calling for strikes was punished as an "aggravated" breach of contract. Over time though, the position was slowly liberalised and through the British Trade Union Act 1871, alongside the subsequent Conspiracy, and Protection of Property Act 1875, trade unions were legitimised.See also, the Royal Commission on Trade Unions (1867) Cmnd ???; Employers and Workmen Act 1875. Craft unions in Australia began in the early 19th century as craft associations of highly skilled urban workers who sought to organise (form a labour union), to increase their low wages and decrease their high number of hours.
By 1902, the Master and Servant Act 1823 had been modified to include forfeit of wages if the written or unwritten contract for work was unfulfilled. Absence from place of work was punishable by imprisonment of up to three months with or without hard labour. There were also penalties of up to £10 for anyone who harboured, concealed or re-employed a 'servant' who had deserted or absconded or absented himself from his duty implied in the 'contract'.Masters and Servants Act (1902) N.S.W. The Act was used against workers organising for better conditions from its inception until well after the first United Kingdom Trade Union Act 1871 was implemented, which secured the legal status of trade unions. Under the Master and Servant Acts enacted in the Australian colonies in the 1840s, employees who left their employment without permission were subject to being hunted down under the Bushrangers Act. As little as one hour's absence by a free servant without permission could precipitate a punishment of prison or the treadmill. In the Melbourne jurisdiction, between 1835 and 1845, when labour shortages were acute, over 20% of prison inmates were convicted under the New South Wales Master and Servant Act for offences including leaving place of work without permission and being found in hotels.
Eight-hour day campaign
In the 1800s, most Victorians worked up to 14 hours a day, six days a week. There was no sick leave, no holiday leave, and employers could sack employees at any time, without giving a reason.State Library of Victoria: Origins of the 8-hour day
On 18 August 1855 the Stonemasons Society in Sydney issued an ultimatum to employers that in six months time, masons would only work an eight-hour day. However men working on the Holy Trinity Church (Garrison Church) in Argyle Cut, and on the Mariners Church, (an evangelical mission to seafarers, now an art gallery and café) in Lower George Street (98-100 George Street), could not contain their enthusiasm and decided not to wait. They pre-emptively went on strike, won the eight-hour day, and celebrated with a victory dinner on 1 October 1855. On 21 April 1856 Stonemasons led by Cooper Bridges, building workers on building sites around Melbourne stopped work and marched from the University of Melbourne to Parliament House to achieve an eight-hour day. Their direct action protest was a success, and they are noted as being among the first organised workers in the world to achieve the eight-hour day with no loss of pay.
It took further campaigning and struggles by trade unions to extend the reduction in hours to all workers in Australia. In 1916, the Victorian Eight Hours Act was passed granting the eight-hour day to a wide range of workers in the state. The eight-hour day was not achieved nationally until the 1920s, but that was in the context of a 48-hour week. The Commonwealth Arbitration Court gave approval of the 40-hour five-day working week nationally beginning on 1 January 1948.
Trades Halls
During 1856 the Melbourne Trades Hall Committee was formed and received a grant of land to build the Melbourne Trades Hall, which was completed in 1859. The Trades and Labor Council of Sydney was formed by eight unions in 1871, and Sydney Trades Hall was built between 1888 and 1895. The United Trades and Labour Council of South Australia has a history dating back to 1884.
1890s great strikes As the craft union movement broadened, less skilled and rural workers began to organise which led to the colonies of Australia being convulsed by a number of great strikes in the 1890s; The response to these events of union action saw the use of breakup actions. For Instance, the 1890 maritime strike was met by the New South Wales and Victorian armed forces to combat protestors. The 1891 shearers' strike in Queensland was broken after 13 union leaders were charged with sedition and conspiracy, and convicted. The 1892 Broken Hill miners' strike in New South Wales collapsed after several strike leaders were arrested and tried for 'unlawful conspiracy and inciting riots', found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment and it became unpracticable for locals to defend the mines from imported labour.Kearns, R.H.B. 1982, The Mines of Broken Hill, Broken Hill, A Pictorial History, Broken Hill Historical Society, Broken Hill, p158-159. In the 1894 shearers' strike sheep shearers in Queensland struck against poor conditions and wages that were being lowered, with the strike broken by the use of non-union labour and police.
Each of these industrial conflicts was seen as a demoralising blow for the labour movement. William Lane and many others sought refuge in building a new society called New Australia in Paraguay. Others in the labour movement, demoralised with direct action, turned to a political solution and sought election to colonial parliaments, and led to the formation of the Australian Labor Party.
Trade union banners
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, trade union banners were unfurled with pride in annual eight-hour day marches which advocated 'Eight Hours Labour, Eight Hours Recreation and Eight Hours Rest'. These marches were one of the most prominent annual celebrations staged in Australia by any group. In Sydney alone, by the early 20th century, thousands of unionists representing up to seventy different unions would take part in such parades, marching behind the banner emblematic of their trade. Most of these banners have not survived; Unions NSW has the largest surviving collection at Sydney Trades Hall in Sussex Street, Sydney.
The State Library of NSW has a small collection of trade union banners that were donated to the library in the early 1970s such as this photograph of a Federated Society of Boilermakers, Iron & Steel Shipbuilders of Australia banner thought to have been made c. 1913–1919. The banner features a kneeling figure in the centre surrounded by scroll work and is decorated with Australian native flowers and images representative of the work of union members such as a New South Wales Government Railways 34 class steam locomotive, the Hawkesbury River rail bridge built in 1889, and a furnace. The reverse of the banner shows the warship "Australia" at sea. The banner is painted on canvas.
Support for White Australia policy Melbourne Trades Hall was opened in 1859 with Trades and Labour Councils and Trades Halls opening in all cities and most regional towns in the following forty years. During the 1880s Trade unions developed among shearers, miners, and stevedores (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.
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.