Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union
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| Full name | Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union |
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| Founded | 1992 |
| Members | 112,462 [1] |
| Affiliation | ACTU, ALP, WFTU |
| Key people | Michael O'Connor (National Secretary), Tony Maher (National President), Dave Noonan (Assistant National Secretary). |
| Country | Australia |
| Website | www.cfmeu.net.au |
The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) is Australia's main trade union in construction, forestry and furnishing products, mining and energy production. The CFMEU is affiliated with the Australian Council of Trade Unions, with the Australian Labor Party and with the World Federation of Trade Unions.
The CFMEU has offices in all capital cities in Australia and in many major regional centres with the national office of the union being in Melbourne. The union has an estimated 120,000 members and employs around 400 full-time staff and officials.
The CFMEU is structured into three main divisions being the Construction and General Division, the Mining and Energy Division and the Forestry and Furnishing Products Division. Each division operates largely autonomously.
The Construction and General Division was formed in the early 1990s with the creation of the national CFMEU. The creation of a single building union had been a policy objective of various building unions for decades with records showing the Queensland Branch of the Operative Painters and Decorators Union (OPDU) carried resolutions calling for a single industry union to be created as early as the 1920s. The rationale behind this policy position was the logical view that members would be better represented by a larger industry based union rather than the traditional craft unions.
The largest amalgamating union, the Building Workers Industrial Union (BWIU) was itself the result of numerous amalgamations over several decades between 1946 and 1992. The coverage of the BWIU included numerous craft unions representing building tradespeople including bricklayers, carpenters, plasterers, tilers, stonemasons and various skilled non-trades construction workers. In the late 1980s the BWIU increased its coverage to include other construction workers such as steel fixers, concreters, construction labourers and trades assistants following the deregistration of the Builders Labourers Federation (BLF).
The division also has members working off-site in manufacturing workplaces such as shopfitting workshops, joinery shops and other establishments involved in the pre-fabrication of materials used in the construction process. Members also work in brick, tile and pottery manufacturing and in Queensland, the union covers furnishing trades as there is no formal Forestry Division in the State, due to the Australian Workers' Union's historical coverage of this industry. The Queensland Branch does, however have a presence in Queensland's forestry sector with CFMEU members employed by the State Government working for the Department of Primary Industries.
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