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:
| Date | Membership |
| 31 December 2000 | 8,936 |
| 31 December 2001 | 8,119 |
| 31 December 2002 | 7,126 |
| 31 December 2003 | 6,710 |
| 31 December 2004 | 8,467 |
| 31 December 2005 | 5,011 |
| 30 June 2006 | 5,087 |
| 30 June 2007 | 9,109 |
| 30 June 2008 | 8,307 |
| 30 June 2009 | 10,939 |
| 30 June 2010 | 7,960 |
| 30 June 2011 | 10,386 |
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.
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