Australian Council Of Trade Unions

A Brief History

A committee of seven was elected and their role was to set out the goals and structure of the Council. Issues that affected the whole trade union movement were dealt with by delegates from affiliated unions of the ACTU. The ACTU was a very small under-resourced organisation for many years after its initial creation.

Structure

President

Roles of the President include being a chairman of the Executive, the Council and Congress. The President is also responsible for the general conduct of that ACTU. Another role of the President is that he/she is the official spokesperson of the ACTU. He/she must represent and argue for the ACTU’s views when in public forums and dealing with the media.

Secretary

The secretary of the ACTU is generally responsible for the day-to-day running of the organisation, which can include both finance and staffing. The secretary must also implement the general policy directions of the ACTU.

Assistant Secretaries

Basically their job is to assist the Secretary. They are delegated specific polices and administrative responsibilities. Their responsibilities are clearly set out. Some of Bill Mansfield’s responsibilities include:

Richard Marles also has his own responsibilities and some of these are:

Other Staff of the ACTU

Priority Issues

(i) To increase the effectiveness of unions and the number of union members. (ii) To achieve better outcomes from the process of enterprise bargaining for wage increases. A special priority is being given to improving wage outcomes for women workers. (iii) To find ways to help workers find a balance between their employment and family life. (iv) To respond effectively to the actions of conservative governments who are legislating to weaken the position of trade unions. (v) To develop and implement policies to assist those most in need in the workforce eg the unemployed and low-wage earners. (vi) To work with other like-minded organisations to achieve social progress in Australia. (vii) To support the efforts by indigenous Australian to obtain a just outcome in their struggle for land rights and recognition of their culture. (viii) To work closely with international organisations such as the ICFTU, the ILO and other national trade union centres to develop free and effective trade union organisations in our region. (ix) To support moves towards an Australian Republic. (x) To oppose nuclear testing in our region and to add our voice to those calling for peace and nuclear disarmament. (xi) To support unions and progressive movements throughout the world in calling for the abolition of child labour.

Over the past ten years there has been a decline in the number of members in the ACTU. The ACTU believes that the reason for this is due to the changes in the composition of the Australian workforce and the structure of the economy.

There are about 8.7 million people in the Australian workforce. Of these, about 2.4 million, or 28% are in unions.

Between 1996 and 1998:

Of all the industrialised nations, Australia has had the largest declination in union membership over the last ten years apart from New Zealand, which fell 22%. Australia fell 13% and the UK fell 12%, while USA only fell 3%.

The ACTU has found that Australia has had a big decrease in numbers because of trends in the workforce. There has been a shift from:

To combat the declining membership rate, the ACTU has decided to put a considerable amount of resources into recruitment. This has resulted in a new campaign called “Unions @ Work.”

Unions @ Work was created to address a few key issues which the ACTU believes are the cause for declining membership in unions.

Its main tactics are to:

The ACTU has sent representatives overseas to find what strategies they have in place for the combat of declining membership. The representatives found a few key strategies used throughout other world unions. They are:

Bibliography