AUSTRALIA: Police State Attack on Unions

On average one worker is killed and thousands seriously injured every week of every year in the building and construction industry. Most of these deaths and injuries are avoidable. The Construction Division of the CFMEU and its members have been fined  tens of millions of dollars in the courts since the onslaught begun by the Howard government and the introduction of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC). Their crime? Taking action to defend workplace health and safety and ensure workers receive their legal entitlements.

Taken over and forced into administration by the Albanese government, CFMEU workers and their officials are being hounded, spied on, and subjected to intimidation by the state, including the Australian Federal Police. The administrators are using the union’s money to persecute its members.

Although Labor officially disbanded the ABCC and transferred most of its vicious anti-union, anti-worker powers to the Fair Work Act Commission, the remaining powers are still being wielded as a political weapon aimed at destroying militant trade unionism. The criminalisation of legitimate trade union activity and use of the courts to bleed unions of their funds remains in place, albeit with reduced penalties.

Union officials attempting to recruit members, speak to their members or organise in the workplace are still being prosecuted. Workers who take industrial action to protect their wages and working conditions or refuse to work in unsafe conditions are pursued.

The ABCC used its draconian powers to call workers in for secret interrogation sessions. Failure to attend or refusal to inform on who said what at a union meeting was punishable by huge fines and up to six months jail.

The ABCC was set up by the Howard government and retained in a modified form by the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments under a new name. As well as having drained CFMEU members’ money, it also wasted millions of dollars a year of taxpayers’ money and cost the court system millions more.

The Albanese Labor government placed the Construction and General Division of the union into administration and appointed Mark Irving KC as Administrator on 23 August 2024 for up to five years.

The framework giving Irving incredible powers and absolute control over the union was put in place by former Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus.

One of Irving’s first actions was to sack paid union officials in Queensland, NSW, and Victoria and dismantle elected positions and the democratic bodies of the union.

BLEEDING THE CFMEU DRY

The Australian Financial Review (AFR) reports that the administration appointed by Irving has spent $4.4 million in expenses in its first seven months. These costs have been borne by the union’s NSW, Victorian, and Queensland branches.

The bill mostly consists of employees’ hefty salaries and investigation costs, including contractors and consultants. According to the AFR, Irving is paid  $643,640 a year. That will come to $1.9 million over the administration’s minimum three-year term.

Irving’s deputy chief of staff, former Australian Services Union official Michael Flinn, is reportedly paid $330,000 a year.

CFMEU SINGLED OUT

Under the ABCC the construction union paid out tens of millions of dollars in penalties for the ‘crime’ of chasing workers’ unpaid entitlements and attempting to make construction sites safe. Union officials and workers were also fined for organising and taking action.

The ABCC’s obsession was such that some of the cases taken to court were petty and vindictive.

For example, in one case the magistrate commented on the waste of time and public funds involved in a long drawn-out case in which an organiser was accused of swearing at a boss, saying: “We have had one witness today about a case whether a bloke took his hat off or didn’t take his hat off and whether he said, f-ck off, to somebody or he didn’t say f-ck off to somebody. One wonders. One wonders about the motive for all this.”

Nonetheless the official was found guilty. The union received a combined total of $12,500 in fines and the organiser lost his right of entry to building sites for 12 months. The organiser was on the site workers were instructed to work in pouring rain on an unsafe site. Never forget; unions make work safer. No job can be too safe.

Now with the union handicapped, bullying and harassment cases are now on the rise.

Despite the hefty penalties, the militant union never let up pursuing bosses who killed and injured workers and stole worker’s entitlements. Those bosses were rarely chased by the ABCC.

IT PAYS TO BE UNION

It is not hard to work out why the CFMEU is the main target. The union has collected millions of dollars for workers who were ripped off by unscrupulous employers. “That’s a lot of hard-earned money back in the pockets of workers for them and their families that they otherwise wouldn’t have,” the union’s Construction Worker reported.  Speaking of rip-offs, the laws being used by the government and employers are funded by the public purse.

Urgent action is required to:

• End the administration of the CFMEU and return the union to its members
• Repeal all anti-union legislation
• Legislate for the unfettered right to strike
• Abolish the system of right of entry permits for union representatives
• Restore all rights to union officials and members
• Not just union coffers have been affected. Workers and their families have been hard hit by the ABCC, and after that, the Albanese government. They should receive full compensation. The International Labour Organisation has repeatedly found the provisions of the laws in breach of international law.

This struggle affects all unions, not just the CFMEU or other unions in the construction industry. If the government in its anti-union campaign on behalf of employers succeeds against the CFMEU, it will come after the other unions.

Guardian readers are urged to write to the Prime Minister, Workplace Relations Minister, their local MP, Senators including the Greens and independents, and contact media outlets and social networks.

The struggle to defeat the government’s attack is the struggle to defend trade unionism in Australia.

Originally published in The Guardian (Australia).