On July 5, 107 Western Australian construction workers who had worked on the Perth to Mandurah rail project became victims of some of this country's most draconian anti-union laws. They face persecution at the hands of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), which started legal action against them in the Federal Court.
About 60 workers were served with writs in their homes. They are charged with taking "unlawful industrial action" in February and March, after their site delegate was sacked. They face fines of up to $22,000 under the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act (BCIIA). Some face a further $6600 in fines for allegedly ignoring an Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) order banning strikes on the construction project. The ABCC has asked the court to order the workers to pay the federal government's court costs.
This is only the beginning of the use of the Howard government's new laws targeting construction workers and their unions. The remaining 296 workers on the rail project could also be charged, and the ABCC has similar prosecutions pending against workers in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, NSW and Queensland. Earlier this month, 40 metalworkers in WA were served with similar writs.
ABCC writs could extend to workers who are not usually considered to be building and construction industry employees. The BCIIA can apply to anyone who works on a building site or has a job connected to a building site. Truck drivers, seafarers and wharfies could all be caught up in these laws because they transport and unload materials for the building industry. Factory workers who manufacture components used in the building industry could also be targeted.
The federal Work Choices laws can also be used to sue workers. Since the Work Choices legislation was introduced, two groups of workers have defied the laws against industrial action in order to defend their rights. In July, 36 seafarers on MT Stolt Australia went on strike and occupied their ship to stop the owner from replacing them with lower-paid workers. In August, around 100 workers at the Amcor Flexibles plant in Preston went on strike against the company's victimisation and sacking of union delegates. Workers at other Amcor plants held 24-hour solidarity strikes (see article on next page).
Stolt dropped legal action against its seafarers when the dispute was resolved, but the federal government has a special section of its Department of Employment and Workplace Relations that can initiate legal action against workers even after a company has dropped its legal action. The seafarers could still be served with writs, and the Amcor workers could face similar fines after defying return-to-work orders from the AIRC and the Federal Court.
The WA construction workers served with writs have vowed to fight the charges and oppose the fines. Some of them, along with their family members, have made defiant statements:
"There's no way my kids are going to be living on vegemite sandwiches while I pay a fine to the government for sticking up for a principle. At the end of the day, your beliefs are what you have. Some things that you do have consequences and we just have to fight on." — John, father of four.
"Who's got $28,000 sitting aside to pay for something like this? We are ordinary, working-class people. We live from week to week. If we can't pay, he will have to go to jail. I can't sleep at night." — Bernie, mother of three, whose husband is among the 107 workers targeted.
When the Stolt seafarers were occupying their ship, they declared, "We as the crew of this vessel have decided that we must take a stand against the massive injustices that the Howard government has inflicted upon Australian workers".
The courage and the defiance of these workers and their families must be heeded by the trade union movement. If the broader movement decided to defy Howard's anti-union laws by organising a national strike in solidarity with the first group of workers fined under the laws, there is precious little that the government or the ABCC could do about it. They cannot jail or fine thousands of workers. They must be forced to back down by a massive industrial and political campaign.