23 June 2012

Rubbery numbers

Long time, no write...

Recently I stumbled across the fact that the Federated Ironworkers Association of Australia (Queensland Branch) Union of Employees was de-registered in the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (QIRC). Nothing odd in that, considering the fact that the Federated Ironworkers (FIA) amalgamated with The Australian Workers Union (AWU) nearly 20 years ago. The decision looks like a bit of house-keeping that the AWU should have done ages ago.


The odd thing is the fact that the FIA was de-registered with the grounds being that it was "defunct" and a "small organisation". For the purposes of the Industrial Relations Act 1999 a "small organisation" is one with less than 20 members. It's odd because the FIA has reported membership of thousands of members as the table below demonstrates:




DateMembership
31 December 20008,936
31 December 20018,119
31 December 20027,126
31 December 20036,710
31 December 20048,467
31 December 20055,011
30 June 20065,087
30 June 20079,109
30 June 20088,307
30 June 200910,939
30 June 20107,960
30 June 201110,386



So between 30 June 2011 and 18 June 2012 we're supposed to believe that the FIA's membership decreased by over 99%. Something's not right. Could it be that the AWU/FIA were fudging their numbers all these years? They wouldn't be the only union. To suddenly have virtually no members surely demonstrates  that the numbers reported to the QIRC for over a decade were rubbish.