Квинслендский совет профсоюзов: История и современность

The Queensland Council of Unions (QCU) is a representative, an advocacy group, or peak body, of Queensland trade union organisations, also known as a labour council, in the Queensland, Australia. As of 2020, 26 unions and 13 regional branches were affiliated with the QCU. The QCU represents unions covering around 350,000 Queensland workers. It is affiliated with the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). Its offices are located in the suburb of South Brisbane, Queensland. As a peak body for the Queensland trade unions, the objective of the QCU is to achieve industrial, social and political justice for Queensland workers. The management structure of the QCU is made up of a committee of management and an executive of representatives comprised from affiliated unions. The history of the QCU is intertwined with the history of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Australian labour movement generally. The QCU was formed in 1885, but in 1889 it disbanded and all its roles and responsibilities were transferred to a newly formed peak body, the Australian Labor Federation (ALF) (which despite its name was restricted to Queensland). In 1902 the QCU reformed, but again, in 1911, all its delegates moved to the ALF. In 1914 the ALF itself dissolved, with its affiliates moving to the growing Australian Workers Union (AWU). At this time the roles of the QCU were shared by a number of labour organisations, including the Brisbane Industrial Council, the Eight Hour Union and the Brisbane Trades Hall Board. At the end of World War I in 1918 Queensland unions regrouped but it was another four years before 46 unions reformed the Queensland Trades and Labour Council, now known as the QCU.

The origins of the organisation lie in the rapid rise of the Australian labour movement in the 1880s. Due to a mining and pastoral boom in the regions outside South East Queensland there was an influx of large numbers of immigrant workers, while in Brisbane and South East Queensland a number of small craft unions were established. On 18 August 1885 a meeting of union secretaries decided to form the Trades and Labour Council, which came into being on 1 September 1885. The next year, 1886, the new labour organisation was sanctioned by the Liberal government of the day (led by the then moderate liberal Samuel Walker Griffith) which passed the Queensland Trade Union Act, legitimising trade unionism in the colony. Workers had been lured to Queensland, mainly from Britain, with the promise of being self made men. The percentage of successful immigrants to become wealthy pastoralists, mining magnates or industrialists was very small – by 1887 most immigrant workers in the mining industries were wage labourers for a mere 30 mining companies. The wool industry was similarly consolidated. In New South Wales there were 3,000 shearing sheds. In the whole of Queensland there were only 150. The forcing together of large numbers of bitter, disillusioned men encouraged working class mateship, heavy drinking and a spectacular growth of trade unionism in the colony. Class activism was further fuelled by several firebrand journalists of the day, notably William Lane who worked on the Brisbane Courier and the Brisbane Observer before starting the Boomerang in 1887. The Amalgamated Workers Union merged with the Australian Workers Union in 1904. The Fifth Intercolonial Trade Union Congress in Brisbane in 1889 accepted the proposal to form the Australian Labour Federation, with the inaugural meeting on 11 June 1889. The QCU disbanded, transferring its roles and responsibilities to the new peak body. For all intents and purposes, this was the QCU continuing under another name. The Australian Labour Federation was an attempt to create an Australia wide peak body, but after failing to attract support outside Queensland it was dissolved in 1914 when its main supporter, the Amalgamated Workers Union merged with the Australian Workers' Union. In 1887 William Shand, aide de camp to the Queensland Governor Anthony Musgrave, was sharply critical of the fanciful promises made to immigrant workers to make their fortune in a so called workers paradise, when in fact poorer workers lived in wooden shanties cobbled together from old biscuit boxes and wine cases. Shand was even more alarmed at how the growing trade union movement was drafting new arrivals into unions, these labour organisations already having had some success in hiking up wages and blocking non union (scab) labour. At this time, 1877, there were 2,500 union members registered under the Queensland Trade Union Act. By 1890 this number had ballooned more than eight fold to 21,500. Even Liberals were caught up in the excitement. In 1889 Samuel Walter Griffith, barrister and 9th Premier of Queensland, after being defeated by the conservative Thomas McIlwraith in 1888, wrote radical articles advocating state intervention to curb capitalism, redistribute wealth, protect the weak and enforce the rule of freedom. Griffith's radical reformer phase was short lived however, as in 1890 he suddenly betrayed his radical friends and became Premier again at the head of an unlikely alliance with McIlwraith, forming the so called "Griffilwraith" government. Also on the political front, Thomas Glassey became Australia's first Labour parliamentarian, representing Ipswich coalminers. He was joined in 1890 by John Plumper Hoolan. Early industrial action had international support, with the British Seamen's Union backing the Queensland Shearers Union to victory in the Jondaryan dispute, by blocking transport and handling of Jondaryan wool bales. In 1993 the organisation was renamed the Australian Council of Trade Unions Queensland Branch to reflect its primary function and role. The name again changed in 1999 to Queensland Council of Unions to rebuild its local identity as a peak organisation for Queensland trade unions. and the 1998 Australian waterfront dispute. In 2012, Queensland Labor leader Annastacia Palaszczuk announced the ALP and the QCU were providing seed funding for the TJ Ryan Foundation to provide a forum for debate on policies and policy development. On 27 February 2014 the TJ Ryan Foundation was launched, taking the form of an online platform for the publication of commentary and analysis by public policy academics and experts.

On 1 March 1858, stonemasons working for John Petrie won the eight hour day, which was first commemorated on 1 March 1865. Initially only those workers who had achieved an eight hour day were allowed to march in Eight Hour Day processions. By 1890, at least 11 unions had achieved significant reduction in hours and improvement of conditions and all workers were allowed to participate in the march from 1890. During the 1891 Shearers Strike in Barcaldine, striking shearers held a procession on May Day, 1 May 1890, with the first Brisbane May Day march in 1893. Eight Hour Day was formally changed to the first Monday in May in 1901, when it was gazetted as a public holiday by the Queensland government. In 1912 the day was renamed Labour Day. The Labour Day march in Brisbane is an organised procession of the Australian labour movement which parades through the streets of Brisbane ending at a park where a festival takes place to entertain participants and their families.