The Rise and Decline of the Australian Building Industry Employees Union in Brisbane, 1912-18

Abstract

The division of Queensland unionism into two blocs, the State-wide Australian Workers Union (A.W.U.) and the metropolitan unions centred in Brisbane, occurred in the five years following the general strike of 1912. The old Australian Labour Federation (A.L.F.) was replaced by an enlarged A.W.U. throughout much of the State, while in the city the decline and dissolution of the Brisbane District Council of the A.L.F. left the metropolitan unions during much of 1913 and 1914 without an effective central organisation. The A.W.U. attempted to move into the metropolitan area on a number of occasions and resistance to this only began to appear with the formation of the Brisbane Industrial Council in 1914. When the building trades unions tried to create a single union to cover all the crafts in the building industry, they became involved in this conflict. Under the influence of the Labour Press' campaign for industrial unionism and the Industrial Workers of the World ideal of the One Big Union (O.B.U.), they had made several attempts before 1912. These included schemes for federating the building trades or amalgamating them either within or outside the A.L.F. Like the proposals for collective wage claims and strike action in the industry, these plans failed to materialise for reasons which were again to hamper the unions' moves towards amalgamation between 1912 and 1914. It took the threat of dominance by the A.W.U. to finally force these unions to co-ordinate their actions more effectively, and in 1915 they formed the Australian Building Industry Employees Union (A.B.I.E.U.), an industrial union similar to those appearing in other States. But the disunity which was never far below the surface re-emerged immediately following its creation, and the union never looked like succeeding after the Brisbane Industrial Council and the craft unions refused it recognition. Its decline was due less to the craft unions' opposition to the concept of industrial unionism than to the initial disagreement between rival groups over the method of achieving amalgamation and to the tactics of the men who controlled the A.B.I.E.U. As had happened earlier, diversity of opinion and organisation within the building trades group of unions again proved the stumbling block.