Hodder, E.R. v The Australian Workers Union

Re: ERROL RAYMOND HODDER
And: THE AUSTRALIAN WORKERS' UNION
No. QLD Q5 of 1985
Industrial Law
11 IR 446

COURT

IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA
QUEENSLAND DISTRICT REGISTRY
INDUSTRIAL DIVISION
Pincus J.

CATCHWORDS

Industrial Law - union rules - powers of Executive Council wide - whether composition of Executive Council oppressive, unreasonable or unjust - undemocratic composition - all States equal in voting power - great disparity of numbers of members in various States.

Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1904, ss.2(f), 140

Conciliation and Arbitration Regulations, reg. 115(1)(d)(v)

HEARING

BRISBANE
#DATE 2:8:1985

ORDER

The application be adjourned to a date to be fixed.

JUDGE1

The applicant is the secretary of the Queensland Branch of the Australian Workers' Union and one of the national vice-presidents. He has obtained a rule that the Union show cause against the granting of orders under s.140 of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1904 declaring that Rule 36 of the Union's rules contravenes s.140(1)(c) of the Act and other orders ancillary to that.

1. Under Rule 36 there is an Executive Council, which I shall call simply "the Executive", which is composed of the president, six vice-presidents, the general secretary and six branch councillors; each holds office, subject to the possibility of prior removal, for four years. Each branch is represented by a vice-president and a branch councillor and that is the source of the applicant's complaint. He says that when one examines the rules it is seen that the Executive is such a body that its having two members from each branch conflicts with s.140(1)(c) of the Act. With qualifications mentioned below, each branch covers a State and the Union has many more members in some States, particularly Queensland, than in others, particularly Tasmania; the applicant says that it is unreasonable that an organ of the Union having such powers as the Executive has should be so undemocratically composed. Although the word "democracy" has been expropriated by institutions which are totally unrepresentative of those whom they rule, the adjective from it, "democratic", still carries with it the implication that the body described is so composed as to be truly representative of those it purports to represent and it is in that sense that I use the word in this judgment. Mr Shaw Q.C., for the Union, could not claim that the Executive is notably democratic, as some members have nine times the representation of others, but urged upon me the view that it is merely an administrative body.

2. If it were, I could see no strong objection to its composition. The core of the case is that it is not. Central bodies of national unions may have quite a range of powers granted to them under the rules, as the evidence in this case illustrates. The Executive of this Union has administrative functions, but its most important functions (which, as the evidence shows, it freely exercises) are not administrative at all but legislative. As will appear, I have reached the conclusion that in view of its…