Publication Date: May 2013
RRP: $29.95
ISBN: 9781922235008
Format: Paperback
Size: 153mm x 234mm
Pages: 292
Category: Australian History

Organise, Educate, Control

The AMWU in Australia, 1852–2012

Edited by Andrew Reeves and Andrew Dettmer

Out of stock

Open Access


The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), which today is a large and complex organisation, can trace its origins to the earliest years of Australian trade unionism and the first meeting of Sydney’s Amalgamated Society of Engineers. This book presents the achievements of the union since the 1850s, but does not shy away from challenges to that history or from controversies past and present.

Contributors detail the industrial influence of the AMWU since the middle of the nineteenth century, discuss the importance of union banners and their place in industrial and political campaigning, and relate stories of memorable people, movements and campaigns. Laurie Carmichael stresses the significance of the shorter hours movement of the 1970s and 80s. Australia Reconstructed, one of the most important – and neglected – union documents of the late twentieth century, is revisited; the politics of union amalgamation, analysed; and the continuing pressures on women as union delegates and leaders, is revealed. Reeves and Dettmer have compiled not a comprehensive chronological history, but a volume that draws out the rich human flavour of AMWU, and suggests its deep and complex connections with the society of which it is part.


Andrew Reeves

Andrew Reeves is a Professorial Fellow at Charles Darwin University and Deakin University, where he works on collaborative research and cultural projects. A historian by training, he worked for many years in Australian museums and more recently as a senior advisor...
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Andrew Dettmer

Andrew Dettmer is National President of the AMWU. He has held that position since mid-2012. Prior to this he was Queensland and Northern Territory State Secretary of the union from 2003. He has been involved in the labour movement and the...
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