NAME OF ORGANISATION
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)
OVERVIEW
To provide statistics on:
- the number of trade unions and employee associations, their size and States of operation;
- the number of financial and total members classified by State, territory and sex;
- the number of unions and number of members classified according to the size of the union (based on employee membership); and
- the proportion of employed wage and salary earners who are members of trade unions and employee associations.
PURPOSE
refer to Overview above
SCOPE
Organisations, consisting predominantly of employees, the principal activities of which include the negotiation of rates of pay and conditions of employment for its members. Non-operating unions or branches, ie those with no members at the date of collection, are not included.
To reduce the possibility of duplication of the number of unions and members in these statistics, where a trade union is a branch of a larger trade union, only the larger organisation is counted.
DATA DETAIL
Conceptual framework
The statistics are compiled from questionnaires completed by individual trade unions and employee associations in respect of their membership and State of operation as at 30 June.
Main outputs
Number of trade unions, their size; financial and total members classified by State, territory and sex; proportion of employed wage and salary earners who are members of unions. The number of unions and number of members are also classified according to the size of the union. Number of unions registered under the Federal Industrial Relations Act 1988.
Classifications
States and Territories; sex; financial and total members; unions registered under Federal Industrial Relations Act 1988.
Other concepts (summary)
Trade union: An organisation, consisting predominantly of employees, the principal activities of which include the negotiation of rates of pay and conditions of employment for its members.
Financial members: Dues-paying members no more than 6 months in arrears.
Total members: All persons regarded by unions as members - financial, unfinancial, honorary, suspended, junior etc.
GEOGRAPHIC DETAIL
Australia
New South Wales
Victoria
Queensland
South Australia
Western Australia
Tasmania
Northern Territory
ACT
Comments and/or Other Regions
COLLECTION FREQUENCY
Annually
Frequency comments
COLLECTION HISTORY
It is not clear when the collection commenced but Australia level data is available from 1891. Some State data is available from 1912. The collection was changed to a 30 June basis in 1985. Figures for previous years were collected as at 31 December. The collection was ceased after June 1996.
DATA AVAILABILITY
Yes
Data availability comments
DATE OF LAST UPDATE FOR THIS DOCUMENT
03/01/2006 12:32 PM
