Identity area
Type of entity
Trade union
Authorized form of name
Seamen’s Union of Australia
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
- Federated Seamen's Union of Australasia; Seamen's Union of Australasia
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1872 - 1993
History
The first seamen’s unions in Australia were formed in Melbourne (1872) and in Sydney (1874). In 1876 the Melbourne Seamen’s Union and the Sydney Seamen’s Union amalgamated and, by 1880, there were seamen’s unions in all the eastern and south-eastern colonies of Australia as well as in several ports in New Zealand. The Federated Seamen's Union of Australasia was registered in 1906 under the Commonwealth's industrial relations legislation and, in 1907, Head Office was transferred from Melbourne to Sydney. Although the Federated Seamen's Union of Australasia was deregistered in 1925, in 1930 many of its members went on to form the Seamen's Union of Australasia which, in 1943, became the Seamen’s Union of Australia. Despite amalgamations with the Marine Cooks, Bakers and Butchers' Association of Australia in 1983, the Federated Marine Stewards and Pantrymen’s Association of Australasia in 1988 and the Professional Divers' Association in 1991, it remained the Seamen's Union of Australia until 1993 when it amalgamated with the Waterside Workers' Federation to form the Maritime Union of Australia.
Places
Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand
Legal status
Functions, occupations and activities
Representation for sailors and merchant seamen.
Mandates/sources of authority
Internal structures/genealogy
Federal Secretary: WJ Daley, 1937-1940; EV Elliott, 1941-1978; P Geraghty, 1979-1991; A Papaconstuntinos, 1992-1993
General context
Relationships area
Related entity
Identifier of the related entity
Category of the relationship
Dates of the relationship
Description of relationship
Access points area
Subject access points
Place access points
Occupations
Control area
Authority record identifier
Institution identifier
Rules and/or conventions used
Status
Level of detail
Dates of creation, revision and deletion
Entered from deposit description, October 2012
Language(s)
Script(s)
Sources
Fitzpatrick, Brian and Rowan J. Cahill, The Seamen's Union of Australia 1872-1972: A History. Sydney: Seamen's Union of Australia, 1981.
Australian Trade Union Archives website atua.org.au