Labour History

Abstract

In recent years the peak union organisations of Australia and New Zealand have supported one another’s domestic campaigns highlighting the continuing ‘trans-Tasman world of work’. This article looks at a strand in the links between Australian and New Zealand worker institutions: the ties between the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and the New Zealand Federation of Labour (NZFOL) from 1970 to the mid-1980s. During this period the leaders of the union organisations sought to understand the rapidly globalising world from a formal joint perspective acknowledging their shared economic and industrial circumstances while confirming a ‘trans-Tasman union community’; a community focused on global matters and civil rights, with an ability to stretch into the Pacific when necessary. This article argues for the significance of this ‘community of interests’ in understanding an aspect of the continuing Tasman world and the development of transnational solidarity in the region.