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JCU Library Archives
Australasian Meat Industry Employees' Union Archive
The Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union (AMIEU), is also known as the Meatworkers' Union. The AMIEU was formed in 1906 as the Australasian Federated Butchers Employees' Union and changed its name to the AMIEU in 1912. Its registered industrial coverage (per the 1906 registration) is "Butchering Meat Refrigerating and Kindred Industries". Particularly in Queensland, the meatworkers set up boards of control at work sites and these boards effectively operated as workers' councils in the meat industry. Meat industry sheds in North Queensland effectively became organised as closed shops.
Considering itself to be an industrial union, this archive reflects the AMIEU's membership as consisting of all workers in a particular workplace regardless of their trade being non-meatwork in character. For example, boilermakers, train or truck drivers, engine drivers and maintenance workers who worked in the meat industry became members of the AMIEU.
This collections consists of records relating to the Queensland branch's activities from c.1915 to 1998. It includes: minutes of meetings; publications, including newsletters, journals, pamphlets; correspondence between union officials and members, business leaders, town councils; financial and membership records; union ticket registers; records of industrial disputes or strikes and logs of claims; decisions and records of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission; work practices and task descriptions at various meatworks plants; union elections/ballots, etc.
Archive Location: 429M-457R, Folios 505
Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union Index
Awards, Agreements and Wage Scales
