HISTORY |
ALERA History |
The Australian Labour and Employment Relations Association (ALERA) was formed on 7 Australia May 1965, making it the oldest and largest national organisation in the industrial relations field in Australia. Formerly called the Industrial Relations Society of Australia (IRSA), the association brought together the industrial relations societies of New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia. It further expanded its influence in subsequent years with the affiliation of the industrial relations societies of Tasmania (1971), the Australian Capital Territory (1972) and the then Territory of Papua New Guinea (1970). ALERA today is well established as the national voice of a wide range of industrial relations professionals. These include employer and union representatives, industrial relations and human resources practitioners, lawyers, academics and members of industrial relations tribunals. The association also publishes the Journal of Industrial Relations (JIR), the second oldest journal of its kind in the world and represents Australia on the committee of the International Labour and Employment Relations Association (ILERA). This page provides an overview of the history of ALERA and its state associations. It also includes links to a number of video documentaries featuring interviews with long-serving members. Find out more about the ALERA history project below. Image credits: Kingsley Laffer (University of Sydney), Sir John Kerr (National Archives of Australia), Keith Hancock and Joe Isaac (Sir Richard Kirby Archives). |  |
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The first society |
The origins of ALERA date back to the late 1950s and the work of pioneering industrial relations academic Kingsley Laffer. Laffer established the study of industrial relations at the University of Sydney and was also the prime mover in establishing the Industrial Relations Society of New South Wales IRS NSW) in 1958 and the Journal of Industrial Relations of which he was the first editor from 1959 to 1974. The Industrial Relations Society of New South Wales (IRSNSW) was the first society of its kind in Australia. It held annual conventions that were well attended by representatives from other states. It was at the society’s 1965 convention in Terrigal NSW, that the federal council held its first meeting. Kingsley Laffer, writing in the JIR, described the establishment of the national body this way: ‘The federal Council had first meeting on May 7th at the Terrigal Convention. The Council formally adopted the federal constitution and with this adoption the federal body came into being’. He said all the inaugural federal office holders were from NSW ‘as it was considered desirable that principal executive offices be held by people in one centre who could readily get in touch with one another’. The first IRSA president was barrister John Kerr QC (later to become Australian Governor General), the treasurer was James Norman Thom MLC and the secretary was Kinsgley Laffer. |
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| Formed in 1962, the Industrial Relations Society of Queensland (IRSQ) was one of the earliest state industrial relations societies in Australia to bring together practitioners, lawyers and tribunal members from across the industrial relations spectrum. In 1964 then President of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission Sir Richard Kirby addressed the IRSQ on ‘Some Aspects of Compulsory Arbitration and Collective Bargaining’. |
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| The Industrial Relations Society of South Australia (IRSSA) now known as ALERA SA, was established in early 1961, becoming the second such society in Australia. Encouraged by Professor Kingsley Laffer, the IRSSA was supported by a range of individuals and institutions, including current and former life members, and early backing from organisations such as the University of Adelaide, the Department of Labour, the South Australian Employers Federation, United Trades and Labour Council, and the SA Industrial Relations Court and Commission |
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| The Industrial Relations Society of Tasmania (IRST) was established at an inaugural meeting held on 21 April 1971. The meeting was addressed by Sir Richard Kirby, then President of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. The IRST was revitalised in 1998 by Pat Leary, who became Tasmania’s first female Commissioner, then President of the Tasmanian Industrial Relations Commission (TIC). After a period of inactivity, in June 2019, IRST was re-launched by a number of passionate IR practitioners, led by Neroli Ellis, as President of IRST. |
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| Like its counterpart in New South Wales, the Industrial Relations Society of Victoria owes its establishment largely to the work of academics. Joe Isaac, a contemporary of Kingsley Laffer pressed for the establishment of the society. Isaac, an economics academic with the University of Melbourne and later Monash University, was the inaugural president and George Polites, Executive Director of the Australian Council of Employers Federations, was the first IRSV member to be appointed president of the national body, then the Industrial Relations Society of Australia (now ALERA). Image: Professor Joe Isaac (left), with George Polites in 2007 at the International Dispute Resolution Conference held in Melbourne. Image courtesy of the Sir Richard Kirby Archives. |
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| The Industrial Relations Society of Western Australia (IRSWA) was established in 1966. At the Annual General meeting the following year Trades and Labour Council (TLC) Secretary Jim Coleman presented a paper on the Council’s first two years. Mr Coleman also addressed the society’s first residential convention in December 1971. Held in the seaside town of Bunbury, the convention also featured presentations from Justice John Moore of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and Bill Ford of the University of New South Wales. Image: Perth Trades Hall in Beaufort Street, Perth, 2024. Image credit: Samuel Wiki, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. |
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