Perth Trades Hall
Coordinates: 31°56′58″S 115°51′46″E / 31.94934°S 115.86289°E The Perth Trades Hall is the Trades Hall building in Perth used by the Western Australian trade union movement for meetings, offices, social and educational events, and the location of the Trades and Labour Council (TLC), now known as the UnionsWA. 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 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. The foundation stone was laid by Prime Minister of Australia Andrew Fisher on 8 August 1911. The Hall was officially opened on 20 April 1912 by Premier of Western Australia, and former Trades Hall secretary John Scaddan. The three-storey building stands at 74 Beaufort Street, the site of Perth’s original Scotch College, 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, 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 and other community and political groups.
In 2007, UnionsWA relocated to the CSA Building located at 445 Hay Street, Perth.
External links
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 1-920845-01-1