Queensland Council of Unions
The Queensland Council of Unions ( QCU ) is the umbrella organization of trade union in Queensland, Australia, which is also called Labour Council. 2005 were united in the QCU 40 individual union and 10 local Trades & Labor Council, which represents 350,000 union members.
Jurisdiction
The Queensland Council of Unions is responsible for the policy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions in Queensland, the unions representing queensland wide, nationally and internationally, supports and coordinates the relationship between the unions and among members, speaks for the labor movement in Queensland, has an influence on the government and public opinion in political, industrial and social issues and provides a quote to their union members to an education, training and campaign management.
The Queensland Council of Unions has an executive branch consisting of elected representatives of their united labor unions, who meet every month.
History
The roots of this organization are in a meeting of union officials, dated 18 August 1885, when they agreed to a Trades and Labour Council that they wanted to start this organization on September 1, 1885. This happened in a period of rapid growth of the trade union movement and when several unions founded, including the Queensland Labourers Union ( 1889) and the Queensland Teachers Union ( 1889), and as well as the memberships of existing trade unions grew. The 5th Intercolonial Trade Union Congress in Brisbane in 1889 the Australian Labour Federation ( ALF) decided to start on 11 June 1889, the Labour council to resolve. The Brisbane Worker newspaper was founded in 1890 by the ALF under the leadership of William Lane. It was the year of the great Australian strikes, such as the Maritime Strike, which was followed by the 1891 shearers ' strike of 1891 and the shearers ' strike of 1894.
The Labour Council Queensland formed in 1903 again, but in 1911 all trade unions were transferred to the Australian Labour Federation. In January 1914, the ALF was finally dissolved, as many unions changed the Australian Workers ' Union and a new organization, which was formed Brisbane Industrial Council. Other internal union organizations such as the Eight Hours Union and the Brisbane Trades Hall Board led the responsible Brisbane Trades Hall. During the First World War, the workers and the trade union movement moved closer together, which manifested itself in a conference in September 1918, when 42 unions agreed on a plan for unification. After lengthy negotiations, the Queensland Trades and Labour Council was founded by a total of 46 trade unions on 12 April 1922.
1993 was called the organization again Australian Council of Trade Unions Queensland Branch to document their essential task and role. This name changed in 1999 in Queensland Council of Unions and therefore mapped the identity of the umbrella organizations of trade unions of Queensland.
Major strikes in Queensland were the General Strike of 1912 in Brisbane, Railroadman Steik of Queensland from 1948, SEQEB dispute and Australian Waterfront Dispute of 1998.
Today, two major unions in Queensland are not members of QCU. These are the Australian Workers ' Union and Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association.
Labor Day
On March 1, 1858 put stonemasons who worked for the entrepreneur John Petrie, the eight-hour day through, which was first celebrated on 1 March 1865. At first it was only these workers were allowed to celebrate this day with an eight-hour march. As 1890 11 unions significant reduction of the working day and improvements had reached their terms and conditions, all workers were allowed to participate in this march, reminiscent of 1890.
During the shearers' strikes of 1891 resulted in Barcaldine from striking shearers on Labor Day, May 1, a demonstration. The first Maimarsch found in Brisbane 1893 instead. The eight -hour day has been declared on the first day in May 1901 as a public holiday by the Government of Queensland and in 1912 it was renamed Labour Day.
The march on Labor Day in Brisbane was carried out in the form of a train of the Australian labor movement with parades through the streets of Brisbane, which ended in a city park, where a feast to entertain the participants and the families took place. This is done to this day.