Tens of thousands of trade unionists took to the streets across the country on August 27 to show their opposition to Labor’s new anti-Construction Forestry Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU) law.
After the establishment media’s unproven allegations against a few CFMEU officials, Labor rushed to enact a special law to replace all branches’ elected construction division officials with an administrator.
More than 40,000 unionists marched from the Victorian Trades Hall to the Fair Work Commission to show their solidarity with the CFMEU.
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Jacob Andrewartha reports from Naarm/Melbourne that that most came from the Building Industry Group of Unions (BIG), which includes the CFMEU, Electrical Trades Union (ETU), Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union of Australia. Most of these workers had walked off the job.
There were sizable contingents from the United Firefighters Union and the Railway and Bus Tram Union. Smaller contingents came from the United Workers Union, Australian Services Union and the Health and Community Services Union.
A Palestinian solidarity contingent was there to show support for the CFMEU.
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Troy Gray, ETU Victorian branch secretary, called out Labor’s double standards saying the new law is applied to a union which has not been able to go through the court process, but not a single boss has been jailed as a result of the royal commission findings on aged care, the big Four Banks and Robodebt.
Gray outlined plans for legal challenges against the CFMEU administration and said a BIG delegates’ meeting to discuss a state-wide campaign to support the construction enterprise agreement is being planned.
Ralph Edwards, retired CFMEU construction division branch president, criticised Labor for passing the law. He said for the past 40 years trade unions are under constant attack, no matter whether the Coalition or Labor were in power.
Edwards called out the establishment for repressing industrial action saying, “It’s only illegal if they don’t agree with it.” He said illegal industrial action had played a key role in stopping the war in Vietnam and opposing the Fraser government’s destruction of Medibank.
Christy Cain, retired CFMEU national secretary, criticised Sally McManus, Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) secretary, for not standing with the CFMEU. He said the new laws are some of the “worst legislation for workers” he has ever seen.
Victorian RTBU and AMWU secretaries Vik Sharma and Tony Piccolo also spoke. Earl Setches, assistant secretary of the CEPU, chaired the rally.
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Peter Carter, WA ETU secretary, told the Boorloo/Perth rally that while “not one union condones criminality”, the CFMEU has not been afforded procedural fairness when such allegations are raised.
He said the same procedural fairness should apply to “every single citizen, corporation or institution this country when allegations are made”.
“But it wasn’t. Instead what we have is a political, industrial and media pile-on.”
He said state and federal Labor had stood by and allowed a “trial by media” and then gone ahead with so-called “emergency” legislation.
“They’ve done it is to send a message to the business community, on the eve of next year’s election … that they can control any ‘errant’ trade unions.
“It’s been done before with the deregistration of the Builders Laborers’ Federation in 1980s … which did nothing to make conditions better in the building industry, until the formation of the CFMEU in the early 1990s.”
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Carter said Labor voted against an inquiry into the CFMEU this time because of what happened after Tony Abbott’s Coalition ordered a royal commission and found nothing. He said the media propaganda campaign then against the unions was huge. However, after the commission had “forensically examined” seven years of union accounts, no charges were brought against union officials.
“Not one piece of evidence of corruption was unearthed. In fact it was the opposite; every single cent that we collected and spent on behalf of our members ... every single cent was accounted for. And that’s the way it should be.”
Carter said he wanted to place on record his “disgust” at the ACTU for “throwing the CFMEU out”, instead of turning their attention to why allegations against a union are “treated differently” to allegations against a corporation.
He called on unionists to “stay united” in face of attempts to divide and provocations “by the richest people on earth”. “In this case, it’s the CFMEU’s fault. In other cases, its immigrants’ fault, or refugees. We know we have to stand united, and that’s what we’ll do.”
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More than 200 workers marched in Gimuy/Cairns to Labor Senator Nita Green’s office to protest the government’s undemocratic attacks on workers, reports Jonathan Strauss.
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Recently sacked CFMEU president Rita Mallia and secretary Darren Greenfield addressed some 30,000 workers in Gadigal Country/Sydney in front of Parliament House. National MUA secretary Paddy Crumlin and Paul McAleer from International Transport Workers' Federation spoke as did Allen Hicks from the ETU, reports Peter Boyle.
Rank and file unionist Denis McNamara urged workers to get more involved, saying: “This is the spark that the working class needs to set fires everywhere … We need to change the whole system, not just the fucking politicians that administer that system.”
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Described by one veteran activist as the “biggest union rally since the 1998 ‘MUA Here To Stay’ May Day victory rally”, 10,000 people rallied in Magan-djin/Brisbane as part of the national day of action.
Union leaders announced a plan to continue to organise and represent CFMEU members and denounced the Labor government’s move as an attack on all workers and all unions.
Electrical Trade Union (ETU) Secretary Peter Ong called for ongoing mobilisations and said union officials from other Building Industry Group of unions would ensure that CFMEU members’ interests would be defended. He also said that the ETU was “next”, if this Labor attack was successful.
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Greens member for Griffith Max Chander-Mather said that the CFMEU had supported the Greens’ demands for building more public housing last year and the Greens are standing with the CFMEU today both to repay the solidarity and because it is “the right thing to do”.
“We've got the fire in our belly to win this fight,” CFMEU leader Jade Ingham said.
More photos can be found on the Green Left Facebook page.
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Jordan Ellis reports that hundreds of unionists rallied outside South Australian State Parliament in Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide.
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