SA Unions is the United Trades and Labor Council of SA.
We’re the Peak Body of the South Australian union movement, representing over 160,000 union members across our state.
We live our values of equality, fairness, and solidarity in our workplaces and in the community.
We’re fighting to make South Australia a fairer place to live and work.
We unite unions, civil society, and community campaigns to secure transformational victories that improve lives and build a more equitable South Australia.
We amplify workers’ voices, ensuring lawmakers and decision-makers craft policies that benefit working people rather than harm them. Our expertise shapes legislation to protect and promote workers’ rights.
As South Australia’s leading provider of worker-focused health and safety training, we empower workers and their unions with the knowledge to build and foster safer workplaces. Find Out More.
SA Unions brings unions together to address the pressing issues facing members and the broader community. We provide a collaborative platform to drive the solutions that matter.
Our Workers’ Compensation Service offers free advocacy, advice, and support to eligible workers, ensuring injured workers receive the assistance they deserve.
Through the SA Unions Young Workers’ Centre, we champion the rights of young workers and deliver comprehensive educational programs for young people and students entering the workforce.
Our history is rich.
It has been our advocacy and dogged campaigning for almost a century and a half that has been responsible for the huge leaps forward in the living conditions of workers in this state.
Carpenters, tailors, bakers, shoe makers and coach makers had formed unions within ten years of European settlement of South Australia, and by the 1870s there were thousands of union members in the colony.
In 1874, the 8 Hour Day Movement created the South Australian Labor League, the forerunner to The UTLC.
In 1884 the United Trades and Labor Council was formed, initially representing 13 unions, to coordinate union activities and advocate on behalf of workers.
Over the last century and a half, SA Unions have been leading from the front in the fight for working people and progressive causes alike.
As we did then, SA Unions still aims to:
- Maximise the union movement’s effect in political, social, economic and industrial issues;
- Defend and extend the rights of working people;
- Increase the standing of trade unions; and
- Provide leadership and co-ordination in issues of broad concern to unions and the community.
