Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union

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**Painters and Dockers'**
*Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union*
Founded	1900
Date dissolved	1 December 1993
'	Members joined MUA and AMWU
Country	Australia
Office location	Balmain, New South Wales

This article is about the Union. For the band, see Painters and Dockers.

The Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union was an Australian trade union that covered "mostly work associated with chipping, painting, scrubbing, cleaning, working in every size of tanks, cleaning boilers, docking and undocking vessels, and rigging work" [1]. Originally established as the Balmain Labourers Union, the union changed its name to the Ship Painters and Dockers Union in August 1900.

The union federated with branches in other states from its beginnings in Sydney and improved conditions on the wharves. During and after World War II the union was run by Communists. Later on in the 1960s and 1970s the union was alleged to have criminal connections.

In 1980 the union was subject to the Costigan Commission (officially entitled the Royal Commission on the activities of the Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union), enquiring into its involvement with organised crime and tax evasion. This Commission became famous because its investigations led to the airing of allegations of tax evasion and drug trafficking against Kerry Packer, then Australia's richest man.

The union was deregistered in 1993. Despite widespread allegations of criminality, the reason the union was deregistered was because it had less than 1,000 members. After the Industrial Relations Act 1988 was passed by the Hawke Government unions with less than 1,000 members had to show why, in the public interest, their existence should continue. Whilst the Dockers opposed the deregistration on principle it could not advance an argument to continue its existence, taking the Act into account. [2] Before de-registration members of the Dockers had been transferred to what are now the Maritime Union of Australia and the AMWU.