Our history
History of the SDA
The SDA’s history can be traced back to 1900. In July of that year a meeting of retail assistants took place and the Victorian Grocers’ Employees’ Union was formed.
In 1908 another union in the retail industry was established – The Shop Assistants’ and Warehouse Employees’ Federation of Australia. In 1919 these two unions merged to form the Shop Assistants and Warehouse Employees Federation of Australia. This integrated union continued to service its membership and negotiate for better wages and working conditions for workers in the retail industry.
The amalgamation with Models and Mannequins Guild of Australia and the Australian Hairdressers and Wigmakers Federation of Australia served to increase the representative ability of the union, and the various trades that it covers.The union today is known today as the Shop, Distributive & Allied Employees’ Association, and incorporates a wide range of industries - retail, fast food, warehousing, modelling, hair and beauty.
2008 will mark 100 years registration of the SDA and a number of events are planned to mark this important milestone.
The SDA is currently putting together a history of the SDA Victorian Branch, If you have stories to tell from years of membership, being a Delegate, or being involved in some other way with the SDA, we'd love to hear from you.
The SDA continues to grow its membership, currently over 220,000 nationally.
Trade Unionism in Australia
The first unions in Australia were formed in the 1840s. These were craft unions; i.e. they were unions based on a particular trade or craft (e.g. carpentry, engineering, stonemasonry etc.).
Early trade unionists saw the main purpose of establishing unions to be to protect the employment conditions and general standing of workers in the particular crafts.
Unions also acted as friendly societies to enable employees to help each other in times of hardship such as when unemployment or sickness struck (in those days there was no dole and no sickness pay). Early unionists campaigned strongly to have working hours reduced.
From these early beginnings came the demand - for an 8 hour day and a 40 hour week for all workers.
In the 1880s and 1890s the first unionisation of general non-craft workers took place. During this period the first general workers unions were formed.
These unions grouped workers in the unskilled or semi-skilled areas such as miners and shearers. Whereas the early craft unions had been formed on colonial or state structures, the general unions quickly developed inter-colonial or national structures, and thus we had the growth of the first national unions.
During the 1890s and the early 1900s unionism grew rapidly. It was during this period that the predecessors of the SDA first came into existence.
In 1908, unions representing retail workers in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia joined together to become Federally registered as the Shop Assistants and Warehouse Employees Federation - today called the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA).
