Australian Ship Building Unions

from Symbols of Solidarity Vol. 5 Issue 2.

Upper Clyde Shipbuilders 50th anniversary

The Union was first registered federally in January 1916 as the Federated Shipwrights of Australia. In September 1916 it changed its name to the Federated Shipwrights' Ship Constructors' & Boat Builders' Association of Australia and in 1917, the union became the Federated Shipwrights Ship Constructors Naval Architects Ships Draughtsmen and Boat Builders of Australia.

The Boilermakers' and Blacksmiths' Society of Australia was formed in 1965 when members of the deregistered Blacksmiths' Society of Australia joined the Boilermakers' Society of Australia. In 1973 it joined the Amalgamated Engineering Union and the Sheet Metal Workers to form the Amalgamated Metal Workers' Union.

The Blacksmiths' Society of Australasia formed around 1912 and was registered in 1916. In 1954 the union became known as the Blacksmiths' Society of Australia until it was deregistered in 1965. Members of the union joined the Boilermakers' Society of Australia which became the Boilermakers' & Blacksmiths' Society of Australia in 1965.

In 1933 it changed its name again to the Federated Shipwrights' & Ship Constructors' Association of Australia. Operating until 1976 the Federated Shipwrights' & Ship Constructors' Association amalgamated with the Amalgamated Metal Workers' Union to form the Amalgamated Metal Workers' & Shipwrights' Union.

The Boilermakers' Society originated directly from the Federated Society of Boilermakers & Iron Shipbuilders of Australia which was registered federally in 1911, and became the Federated Society of Boilermakers Iron Shipbuilders & Structural Iron & Steel Workers of Australia in 1929.

By 1937 the union had become the Boilermakers' Society of Australia. In 1965 the members of the deregistered Blacksmiths' Society of Australia joined the union and it became the Boilermakers' and Blacksmiths' Society of Australia.

The Boilermakers' Society of Australia, Adelaide Branch was originally the United Society of Boilermakers and Iron Shipbuilders of South Australia founded on 31 August 1880 at Port Adelaide (Glanville) and called the Port Lodge.

Another branch was established in Adelaide on 21 December 1882. By 1911 it had become the Adelaide branches of the Federated Society of Boilermakers and Iron Shipbuilders Society of Australia, a predecessor to the Boilermakers' Society of Australia.

Formed in 1945, the ShipJoiners' Society of Australia operated until 1975 when it was deregistered. It was separate from but related to the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners as the second badge indicates.

Thus, it was connected to the anti-Communist ASCJ NOT THE

Left Wing Union

The first Amalgamated Society of Carpenters & Joiners of Australia was originally registered as the Australian District of Amalgamated Society of Carpenters & Joiners in 1911. By the end of 1922 the name had been amended to become the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters & Joiners of Australia [ASC&J].

The Building Workers' Industrial Union of Australia however, functioned for just three more years until it was deregistered in 1948. The name Amalgamated Society of Carpenters & Joiners was ultimately taken over by a rival, anti-Communist breakaway in 1950. The Building Workers' Industrial Union of Australia was eventually reregistered in 1962.

In 1931 a Ship Joiners & Aircraft Workers Union of NSW was registered but no records of it seem to be around.

The Federated Ship Painters' and Dockers' Union of Australia was registered under the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act (1904) in 1916, and had New South Wales, Victorian and Federal branches. It was deregistered in 1993.

It represented labourers in the shipbuilding industry, covering "mostly work associated with chipping, painting, scrubbing [and] cleaning [ships], working in every size of tanks, cleaning boilers, docking and undocking vessels, and rigging work”

After folding in the 1890s world depression, the Balmain Labourers Union were reborn in 1900. Later that same year the Ironworkers Assistants set up their own union and the Balmain Labourers became the Ship Painters and Dockers.

This original ASC&J operated until the end of the Second World War when its name was changed to the Building Workers' Industrial Union of Australia in 1945.

Issy Wyner: “Its field of work still covered a wide variety of activities in, on and around ships in docks, on slipways, at wharves and moorings in the Harbour: from ship's truck to keelson, from stem to stern, mostly work associated with chipping, painting, scrubbing, cleaning, working in every size of tanks, cleaning boilers, docking and undocking vessels, and rigging work. Many among the membership were seamen who had come ashore to settle down to a shore job and found that they could apply their seagoing skills and knowledge to the variety of tasks of Painters and Dockers. Seamen, among them some who had spent time on sailing ships as well as steamships, possessed great ability in the use of wire and hempen rope, and they found an important place in rigging gangs. Ships' firemen, too, had a place in the industry in cleaning and servicing ships boilers.” http://www.takver.com/history/ myunion/myunion01.htm