| Liquor, Hospitality And Miscellaneous Union |
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| australian labour movement | |
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The Australian Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union (LHMU) (the "Missos") is one of Australia's largest Unions , with around 130,000 members. LHMU members work in a wide range of occupations including Hospitality ,childcare, aged care, property services (cleaning, security,maintenance etc.), Health , Manufacturing , Ambulance workers (in some states) and community services. HISTORY The LHMU is an almgamation of the Federated Miscellaneous Union (FMWU) and Liquor Trades Union (LTU). This occurred in 1992 and the new union had 200,000 members. Today it has around 130,000 members. The decline in membership can be explained by the end of compulsory unionism in 1996 and a lack of an organising focus until recent times. The move of flight catering and aircraft cleaning staff to the Transport Workers Union in the mid-1990s also lost the union several thousand members. In recent years the union has reported a small but important growth - going against the trend of most union membership figures in Australia. Its major campaign for cleaners called Clean Start:Fair Deal for Cleaners {Link without Title} is inspired by the successful US campaign Justice for Janitors and has organised many new immigrant women cleaners in CBD office blocks across Australia. The LHMU had humble beginnings, starting off as a union of Watchmen , Caretaker s and Cleaners with 1400 members in 1915 . After steady growth over the first half of the century, including winning paid Sick Leave , Annual Leave and a forty-hour week, the union really took off in the 1950s . A new Rank-and-file leadership took over to create a vibrant, member-driven union. Famous campaigns during the 1950s and 60s included organising workers paid to be Santa Claus es at Christmas and a group of Dance instructors who were locked out for four months before winning their jobs back. The strength of the "Missos" grew over these years, with membership increasing from 25,000 in 1955 to 88,000 by 1975 . By the early 1990s, the LHMU had become powerful with close links to Labor politicians such as Bob Hawke , Neville Wran and Lionel Murphy . Media reports indicate the long-time LHMU National Secretary, Jeff Lawrence, who has led his union for 17 years, will soon replace the secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions( ACTU), Greg Combet. Combet has announced he will stand for election as a Labor candidate for the Australian parliament. Lawrence - a leader of the Left in the Australian labour movement - has beaten off a challenge for the ACTU leadership from John Robertson the high-profile leader of the powerful Unions NSW, a wealthy and effective regional trades and labour council traditionally associated with the Right of the labour movement in Australia. Lawrence - who does not have a high media profile - is widely respected for his strategic thinking, his preparedness to consider and implement new models for Australian workplace organising and the careful consensus style he brings to union politics. In recent years Lawrence not only has oversighted the successful Clean Start campaign, referred to above, but has backed a winning organising effort in the normally hard to unionise childcare private sector, ensuring that childcare workers in Australia's biggest childcare company, ABC Learning, are protected by a quality collective agreement. Under his leadership women dental technicians and childcare workers across Australia have won historic pay equity decisions. Against some internal opposition in the LHMU Lawrence forced through affirmative action rule changes to ensure that in all key decision-making councils of the union women workers had their voices heard. Lawrence is expected to ensure that his successor at the top of the LHMU will be one of several competent women union leaders he has mentored. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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