Labor green lights toxic bully-boys of the CFMEU
The political protection racket the modern ALP is running for the toxic behaviour of the CFMEU, which would be rightly condemned in any other setting, is nothing short of disgraceful.
Listen to this article4 minThe Albanese government has given the thugs and law-breakers of the Construction, Forestry, Maritime and Energy Union the green light to unleash its militant bully-boy tactics on the nation’s construction workplaces with impunity.
Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke repaid the political debt to Labor’s top union donor at the 2022 election by doing the CFMEU’s bidding and abolishing the Australian Building and Construction Commission, the strong cop on the building site beat established by the Howard government in 2005.
The Fair Work Ombudsman that Labor supposedly tasked with policing bad behaviour in the building industry has dropped 30 per cent of the 41 cases of alleged construction union lawbreaking it inherited. Getty
As The Australian Financial Review revealed on Monday, the Fair Work Ombudsman that Labor supposedly tasked with policing bad behaviour in the building industry has dropped 30 per cent of the 41 cases of alleged construction union lawbreaking it inherited from the ABCC, while failing to launch a single new case against the CFMEU in the past 18 months, while launching several actions against employers.
This follows the FWO decision to reach a last-minute out-of-court settlement that dropped claims of physical and financial intimidation against the Queensland CFMEU in a long-running case originally brought by the ABCC.
The charges involved a CFMEU official allegedly telling a construction company manager that he would “grab my bat and start swinging it” if the builder did not use the union’s preferred subcontractor, and threatening to pull some political strings to “knock them off” getting a major road project contract.
AdvertisementThe same official was allegedly one of the CFMEU representatives who illegally entered a government project site in south-west Brisbane following an early morning standoff with police and security guards yesterday.
The dropping of the charges prompted Federal Court Justice Angelo Vasta to blast the “bizarre” move that came after a five-day trial and as he was writing his ruling, and despite the FWO having a “very strong” case.
Judge Vasta published his judgement in the public interest regardless, which along with fining the CFMEU for other wrongdoing, noted that the dropping of the charges would create the “Orwellian” perception that the FWO was not living up to its purpose by treating some victims and some perpetrators of workplace bullying as more equal than others.
The fundamental principle at stake is the fair and impartial upholding of the rule of law.
The fundamental principle at stake is the fair and impartial upholding of the rule of law, along with the integrity of the political system.
The CFMEU is taking advantage of Labor granting its union paymasters free rein to push its “no ticket, no start” campaign for compulsory union membership and kick non-union subcontractors off building sites.
Employer groups warn that at a time when rising wages and building material costs have sent dozens of residential builders to the wall, the return to industrial anarchy on construction sites will blow out the cost to taxpayers of major public infrastructure projects.
Breaking the law to get what it wants – while gallingly having its monopoly right to represent workers legally protected by the industrial relations system – is the CFMEU’s business model.
That includes treating court-ordered fines for its long and appalling rap sheet of unrepentant recidivist lawlessness as the cost of doing business.
In the 1980s, a Labor government under Bob Hawke deregistered the CFMEU’s forerunner law-breaking construction union the Builders Labourers Federation. Contrast that with last year’s decision by the nation’s chief legal officer, Attorney General Mark Drefyus, to waive a $500,000 cost order against the CFMEU after losing a case to the ABCC.
The nation’s most notorious outlaw union is now seeking to strengthen its political hold over Labor. The thuggish secretary of the Victorian construction division John Setka – who was convicted for harassing his wife and forced to resign from the ALP for denigrating domestic violence campaigner and former Australian of the Year Rosie Batty – is plotting a recruitment drive to sign up 1000 rank-and-file union members to the Labor Party to boost the CFMEU’s internal sway over Labor’s policy direction.
In Victoria, the Socialist Left-controlled state Labor government already governs in virtual partnership with the CFMEU.
The political protection racket that modern Labor is running for the toxic behaviour of the CFMEU – which would be rightly condemned in any other domestic or workplace or corporate setting – is nothing short of disgraceful.
