The Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union (also known as the Meatworkers Union) is an Australian trade union representing workers in the meat industry including in abattoirs, butchers, and smallgoods manufacturers. Structure The AMIEU has branches representing workers each State and Territory of Australia. Branch officials are democratically elected by the members every four years. The union also has a Federal Council, which represents the union nationally and is the supreme decision making body of the union. The Council is composed of elected delegates from each branch, who meet every two years to determine policy for the union and elect the Federal Secretary and President. In between the biannual meetings of the Council the union is governed by a Federal Executive made up of the secretaries of each branch as well as the Federal Secretary and President. The union is affiliated with the IUF, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and the Australian Labor Party. History Early History Prior to 1890 there were no organised trade unions in the Australian meat processing industry. Wages and conditions varied from worksite to worksite and were re-negotiated at the start of each killing season by butchers on behalf of their teams. Wages tended to be higher at the start of the season when cattle were plentiful, but then driven down significantly at the end of the season when cattle were scarce. The AMIEU was formed in 1906 as the Federated Butchers Union, and changed its name to the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union in 1912. The AMIEU was organised between 1906 and 1920, particularly in Queensland, by the revolutionary union the Industrial Workers of the World. The IWW, or Wobblies, encouraged Meatworkers to set up boards of control on job sites. These boards functioned, effectively, as works councils in the Meat industry. The boards were particularly strong in North Queensland where, under the direction of state organiser Walter Russell Crampton, they controlled production levels through direct action. Meat industry sheds in North Queensland were so effectively organised that the sheds became closed shops. This was known in the day as Preference of Employment. The AMEIU used the skilled portion of the workforce, the slaughtering gang, to infiltrate non-union towns in North Queensland. These towns were essentially company towns. The slaughtering gang was irreplaceable due to their skill, they were mobile as their skill was in demand across multiple shops, and they were militant. The