Association of Draughting, Supervisory and Technical Employees

ADSTE
Full name Association of Draughting, Technical and Supervisory Employees
Founded August 1915
Date dissolved 1991
merged into AMWU
Members 21,800 (1987)[1]
Affiliation ACTU, Metal Trades Federation, CAGEO, ACSPA[2]
Country Australia

The Association of Draughting Supervisory and Technical Employees (ADSTE), originally known as the Association of Architects, Engineers, Surveyors and Draughtsmen of Australia (AAESDA), was an Australian trade union which existed between 1915 and 1991. It represented white collar and technical-grade employees in manufacturing, construction and the public service.

Unlike many other white collar unions in Australia the ADSTE did not include managerial-level employees and many of its members were tradespeople (60% in 1991) who had been promoted to more highly skilled positions.[3] The union's membership was widely dispersed throughout a variety of industries and occupations, and it was rare to have more than five members employed in a single workplace - often making union organisation a challenging task.[4]

The union was generally politically-unaligned, and the membership actively resisted the attempts of some officials to encourage affiliation with the Australian Labor Party (a common practice among Australian unions) during the early 1970s.[4] This was again the case when in 1984 the ADSTE Federal Conference rejected a motion, supported by the union's officials, to allow the union to financially or publicly support political parties.[4]

The union published a monthly journal known as the AAESDA Bulletin and later simply as Blueprint.[5]

History

The union was founded in Brisbane in August 1915 as the Association of Architects, Engineers, Surveyors and Draughtsmen of Australia with a membership of 108. The union initially represented white collar employees in the Queensland Railways workshops, but soon expanded to cover engineers employed in the Queensland Public Service and local government engineering offices, as well as architects in the Public Works Department and Department of Public Lands. The union was registered with the Industrial Court of Queensland on 11 April 1917 as the Australian Union of Architects, Engineers and Surveyors, Union of Employees, Queensland.[6] The union grew slowly over the following decades, reaching 243 members by 1933 and 528 by 1939.[3]

In 1944, with branches in Victoria and New South Wales, the AAESDA achieved federal registration.[2] In 1948 it took over members from the deregistered Australian Association of Draughtsmen and the Commonwealth Temporary Technical Officers' Association.[6][4] By 1965 the AAESDA had 12,738 members, of which 7322 were employed in the private sector.[3]

The AAESDA played a key role in the 1956 establishment of the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations (ACSPA), the peak body for unions and professional associations representing salaried employees. The AAESDA's federal president, Paul Allsop, became the first president of ACSPA.[7] The union remained affiliated with ACSPA until 1977, when it transferred its affiliation to the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), shortly before ACSPA merged into the ACTU in 1979.[4]

In the 1970s the AAESDA, like many other Australian unions, became more industrially militant, including being more prepared to undertake strikes and other industrial action.[3] The union's membership was also undergoing a change as fields such as architecture and engineering became increasingly professionalised, requiring university-level qualifications, and many members in these occupations chose to be represented by occupation-specific professional associations such as the newly formed Australian Professional Engineers Association (APEA).[3] By 1979 technicians accounted for 48 per cent of the union's membership; draughtsmen, 31 per cent; and supervisors, 18 per cent - architects, engineers and surveyors collectively made up less than 3 per cent of the union.[4] To better reflect this new membership profile the union changed its name in 1981 to the Association of Draughting Supervisory and Technical Employees (ADSTE).

In the 1970s and 80s technological change and the decline of the Australian manufacturing industry put pressure on the ADSTE and it began to seek options for amalgamation. In 1986 it amalgamated with the Australian Public Service Artisans' Association, which represented approximately 2200 permanent trades employees of the Federal Government,[4] and in 1971 took over members from the deregistered Federation of Scientific and Technical Workers.[6] Unsuccessful attempts were also made to amalgamate with the CSIRO Technical Association and the Supervisory Technicians' Association.[4] In 1970 the ADSTE began talks with the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU), which had a broad membership among blue-collar workers in manufacturing, however there was a strong backlash from the membership of the ADSTE, who resisted the loss of their union's distinct identity.[4] Driven by the union's financial difficulties, these talks were restarted in 1984 with the successor to the AEU, the Amalgamated Metal Workers' Union (AMWU), before the amalgamation was finally completed in 1991, with the two unions merging to form the Metals and Engineering Workers' Union.[4][6]

References

  1. ↑ Bolton, Brian (1993). Telecommunications Services: Negotiating Structural and Technological Change. International Labour Organisation. p. 36. ISBN 92-2-108263-6. Retrieved 5 June 2014.
  2. 1 2 Huntley, Pat (1980). Inside Australia's Top 100 Unions. Middle Cove, NSW: Ian Huntley (Aust.). p. 23-26. ISBN 0-9598507-4-0.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Dettmer, Andrew (2013). "The Hope of the World: The Amalgamation of ADSTE and the AMWU". In Andrew, Reeves; Andrew, Dettmer. Organise, educate, control: the AMWU in Australia, 1852-2012. Clayton, Victoria: Monash University Publishing. pp. 34–58. ISBN 9781922235008.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Davis, Edward M (1987). Democracy in Australian Unions: A Comparative Study of Six Unions. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. p. 73. ISBN 0043202055. Retrieved 27 March 2016.
  5. ↑ Edgar, Patricia (2013). In Praise of Aging. Melbourne: The Text Publishing Company. p. 126. ISBN 9781922147554. Retrieved 5 June 2014.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Smith, Bruce A. (2010). "Association of Draughting Supervisory & Technical Employees (i) (1981-1986)". Australian Trade Union Archives. Australian Trade Union Archives. Retrieved 5 June 2014.
  7. ↑ Hill, John (1982). From Subservience to Strike: Industrial Relations in the Banking Industry. St Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press. p. 147. ISBN 0702218308. Retrieved 27 March 2016.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Monday, April 04, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.