The Perth Trades Hall is the Trades Hall

Trades Hall

A Trades Hall is an English term for a building where trade unions meet together, or work from cooperatively, as a local representative organisation, known as a Labor Council or Trades Hall Council...

 building in Perth

Perth, Western Australia

Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....

 used by the Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

n trade union

Trade union

A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

 movement for meetings, offices, social and educational events, and the location of the Trades and Labour Council (TLC), now known as the UnionsWA

UnionsWA

-Name changes:Originally known as the Trades & Labor Council, Perth from 1891, the organisation has gone through several name changes including the Western Australian Branch of the Australian Labour Federation in 1907; Australian Labor Party in 1927; Trade Unions Industrial Council in 1947...

. Although a Trades and Labour Council (TLC) was established in Perth in 1891, finances to build a Trades Hall were not available until 1911, when Alick McCallum

Alick McCallum

Alexander "Alick" McCallum was an Australian politician. He was the Labor member for South Fremantle in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly from 1921 to 1935. He served as Minister for Works from 1924 to 1930. From 1933 to 1935 he was Deputy Premier of Western Australia and Minister for...

 became General Secretary of the Australian Labour Federation, as the TLC was then called.

Design and construction of the original trades hall building was largely due to the efforts of Ernest Henshaw

Ernest Henshaw

Ernest Percival Henshaw was an Australian Labor Party politician who became a Member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly....

. The foundation stone was laid by Prime Minister of Australia

Prime Minister of Australia

The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...

 Andrew Fisher

Andrew Fisher

Andrew Fisher was an Australian politician who served as the fifth Prime Minister on three separate occasions. Fisher's 1910-13 Labor ministry completed a vast legislative programme which made him, along with Protectionist Alfred Deakin, the founder of the statutory structure of the new nation...

 on 8 August 1911. The Hall was officially opened on 20 April 1912 by Premier of Western Australia

Premier of Western Australia

The Premier of Western Australia is the head of the executive government in the Australian State of Western Australia. The Premier has similar functions in Western Australia to those performed by the Prime Minister of Australia at the national level, subject to the different Constitutions...

, and former Trades Hall secretary John Scaddan

John Scaddan

John Scaddan, CMG , popularly known as "Happy Jack", was Premier of Western Australia from 7 October 1911 until 27 July 1916.- Biography :...

. The three storey building stands at 74 Beaufort Street, the site of Perth’s original Scotch College

Scotch College, Perth

Scotch College , is one of Australia's leading independent schools for boys, situated in Swanbourne, Western Australia, Australia. The school is a member of the Public Schools Association and is now a Uniting Church school, although it was founded in 1897 by the Presbyterian Church of Australia...

, and is of neo-Georgian design. In 1985 the building was purchased by the Delaney family to house the Claremont contemporary art gallery.

A new Perth Trades Hall was dedicated on May Day

May Day

May Day on May 1 is an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival and usually a public holiday; it is also a traditional spring holiday in many cultures....

, 2000, known as Unity House located at 77-79 Stirling Street, and provides offices and meeting rooms for UnionsWA, trade unions, the Australian Labor Party

Australian Labor Party

The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...

and other community and political groups.

In 2007, due to financial mismanagement, UnionsWA had to relocate to the CSA/CPSU Building located at 445 Hay Street, Perth.

Further reading

• Monk, Ian.(1999) Perth's Trades Hall, 1912-1983. Papers in labour history, No.22 (Dec. 1999), p.6-20,
• Oliver, Bobbie, (2003) Unity is strength : a history of the Australian Labor Party and the Trades and Labor Council in Western Australia, 1899-1999 Perth WA : API Network, Australia Research Institute, Curtin University. ISBN 1920845011