Building industry royal commission — the bosses' tool

BY SUE BOLTON

MELBOURNE — The release by commissioner Terence Cole of the royal commission into the building industry’s final 23-volume report showed decisively that this commission had nothing to do with fighting corruption, and everything to do with fighting unions. This is what the construction unions warned when Prime Minister John Howard established the royal commission on July 26.

The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union estimates that 90% of the commission’s time was spent investigating allegations against the construction unions, including the CFMEU, the Electrical Trades Union, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the plumbers’ division of the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union. Very little attention was paid to investigating allegations against employers.

This royal commission was never a just process. Unions were denied the right to cross-examine witnesses who made serious allegations against them. The commission’s report is based on these unsubstantiated allegations, which are reported as if they are fact.

While the federal government had access to the report in late January, unions were denied access until its public release on March 26 and 27. There is still one confidential "red’’ volume that has not been released. It contains the names of 23 unionists and eight businesspeople who face possible prosecution for criminal activity. The government announced that it would remain secret, but be referred to state and federal prosecutors.

The CFMEU has called for the volume to be released. CFMEU Victorian secretary Martin Kingham predicted that less than half of the recommendations in the confidential volume would be pursued.

Cole’s report lists 392 findings of unlawful conduct against union officials and employers. The Western Australian construction unions have been especially targeted — 230 of the 392 cases of unlawful conduct relate to WA. The second largest number of findings are against Victorian unions, followed by NSW.

This sounds damning until you read the nature of the allegations: holding unauthorised stop-work meetings; seeking strike pay; ensuring that all subcontractors sign a union-endorsed enterprise agreement before coming on site; and pursuing a policy of ensuring that all workers on site are members of the union. There are no allegations of corruption in relation to the Victorian and Western Australian branches.

The 19 employers cited, including Baulderstone Hornibrook and Grocon, are for things such as bending to union demands and paying workers when they are on strike.

Cole’s report includes no findings against "phoenix’’ companies, which close down without paying workers their entitlements and then set up under a different name. The building industry is littered with such dodgy companies.

CFMEU officials describe the royal commission report as no more than a list of technical industrial breaches. Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC) secretary Leigh Hubbard pointed out that no industrial action, except for a limited period during enterprise bargaining, was lawful under the Workplace Relations Act.

ACTU secretary Greg Combet was quoted in the March 26 Australian as saying that most of the 392 allegations were "trivial and pathetic’’ incidents such as union organisers sitting down to negotiate enterprise agreements with employers being interpreted as "unlawful interference in contractual obligations’’.

The recommendations of the royal commission include:

* Establish an Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) with powers to investigate and prosecute breaches of law. It would have powers similar to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and would have the power to enforce the Trade Practices Act against unions that block the ability of companies to operate. It would also supersede the Office of the Employment Advocate, which would then focus on other industries;

* Draft a Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act, which would override the Workplace Relations Act if the two clash;

* Boost fines for unlawful industrial action to $20,000 for individuals and $100,000 for unions;

* Abolish industry-wide pattern bargaining, on pain of union deregistration;

* Make unions and individual workers liable for the losses they "cause’’;

* Disqualify officials who "engage in unlawful conduct’‘ from holding office;

* "Clarify’‘ unions’ right of entry to premises and powers to inspect books. The ABCC would have the power to cancel a union official’s right of entry where it is "abused’‘;

* Secret ballots before industrial action;

* Unions to be limited to two weeks of protected industrial action followed by a three-week cooling off period;

WA CFMEU state secretary Kevin Reynolds condemned the proposed abolition of pattern bargaining. He told the March 28 West Australian: "Why should a bricklayer on one job be getting paid less than another bricklayer working on exactly the same type of job down the road?’’

As soon as the royal commission report was released to the public, federal workplace relations minister Tony Abbott announced that he would endorse all of Cole’s key recommendations when they go to cabinet in the next couple of weeks.

The commission's recomendations are a not-so-subtle rehash of the proposed changes to the Workplace Relations Act that have so far been blocked by the Senate. Clearly, the government hopes that it will be more successful with new laws that apply initially to one industry. We can expect the government and the corporate media to slander the reputation of militant unions in order to persuade the Senate to pass the legislation.

Democrats workplace relations spokesperson Andrew Murray told the March 28 Herald Sun that: "We do think there are problems in the industry at the employer and employee level … we will be even-handed and fair in our assessment.’’

Abbott has stated that he hopes the industry-specific nature of the proposals would win over the Democrats senators.

At this stage Abbott is indicating that he’s not considering deregistration of the CFMEU. He says that deregistration of the former Builders Labourers Federation failed to destroy its influence in the industry, implying that the CFMEU has adopted the old militant tradition of the BLF since the two unions amalgamated in the early 1990s.

If these proposed laws restricting the rights of construction workers to organise collectively get passed by the Senate, and are not defeated by struggle on the ground, it will be a blow for all workers. Abbott knows that if he can tame the CFMEU, he has more of a chance of demoralising other workers and unions. While the CFMEU remains strong, it is an inspiration to other unionists.

The VTHC has called a meeting of delegates and activists from all affiliated unions for April 9 to discuss action. Mass solidarity rallies on April 29 and May 1 have also been called by the CFMEU to coincide with the four-day trial of Victorian CFMEU secretary Martin Kingham for refusing to hand over lists of names of delegates and union members to the commission.

From Green Left Weekly, April 2, 2003.
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