Union election voting is a core aspect of the commercial landscape in Australia. Workers, professionals, and businesses across numerous sectors and industries engage with unions that represent worker rights, campaign on specific issues or legislation, and negotiate with governing bodies on behalf of their members.
Looking into the background of Australian unions and elections provides some insights into how this has evolved. The very first unions were established back in the 1820s around Hobart and Sydney, formed by free workers or non-convict manual laborers.
Today, multiple types of elections in Australia relate to union action, pay deals, and nominating board members and representatives, but most of the function and focus of modern-day unions still relate to their original purpose and goal.
The most important union elections in Australia are often considered those that occurred between 1850 and 1869, when roughly 400 unions were created, most comprising members involved in specific traders or crafts, including:
Early votes and campaigns looked to introduce mutually beneficial financial systems, where members could request help supporting their families if they became unwell, a union member died, or their employer closed, leaving them redundant. This work paved the way for social welfare reforms, followed by activities petitioning the government and larger employers to provide better wages and improve working conditions.
However, many of the first unions were soon disbanded due to varied pressures and fluctuating economic conditions before becoming more popular and with larger memberships in the 1850s. During this period, workers started calling for a standardized eight-hour working day–putting an end to longer shifts that had been common in manual and craft trades.
Over the next three decades, changes to how women could vote, work, and form unions meant that many were involved in setting up separate unions segregated between women and men, although these later often merged to form larger and more powerful groups. Unions became more politically relevant as labor councils coordinated their efforts, notably forming the Australian Labour Party. At this stage in 1890, around 200,000 Australian adults of working age were members of a union.
This movement ended abruptly during the economic depression, when frustrated, angry workers became involved in increasing strike action, with smaller or less established unions collapsing in droves. In the early 20th century, the government introduced compulsory arbitration, which set the foundation for a legal minimum wage and nationwide rules around working conditions. Businesses were incentivized to negotiate with unions, with the Australian Council of Trade Unions subsequently created in 1927.
The Great Depression of the 1930s and the impacts of World War II meant that tensions, poverty, and friction intensified across many sectors, with the complexities of increasing support for the Communist Party, often owing to the stress and fear brought about by severe depression and war. Once Australia began recovering and the conflict came to an end, trade unions made some progress, introducing reduced working hours and campaigning for equal pay. They also turned their attention to inclusivity measures to tackle Indigenous rights.
While the period from the 1980s was difficult for many unions–owing to varied challenges such as deregulation and privatization, along with the start of casual working economies–today, 1.4 million working adults are union members. Although this represents a steep fall from the 41% membership levels in 1992, a further 1.8 million unaffiliated workers remain protected by union contracts.
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