The Albanese Labor government has imposed administration on the whole CFMEU construction division.
Control of the union is now in the hands of Workplace Minister Murray Watt and his lackey, administrator-in-chief, King’s Counsel Mark Irving.
Irving’s administration is the most appalling act of union-busting since Labor deregistered the BLF in 1986.
Murray Watt has boasted it is, “The strongest action that any government has ever taken against any union.”
NSW Secretary Darren Greenfield and President Rita Mallia, Queensland Secretary Michael Ravbar and Assistant Secretary Jade Ingham, Victorian Assistant Secretary Derek Christopher and others have all been sacked. While National Secretary Zach Smith remains in place, he is now powerless.
The cynical claim in Mark Irving’s letter to CFMEU members that it will be “business as usual” for the CFMEU is just a lie.
The administrator has the power to remove elected delegates and the power to sack organisers employed by the union.
Six organisers in Brisbane have already been sacked. Any union organiser who has had their right of entry removed will be in the firing line for daring to break the shackles of the Fair Work Act.
And there are penalties of up to two years’ jail and almost $1 million fines for obstructing the administrator.
Albanese has tried to put a fig leaf over the attack by appointing supposedly friendly labour lawyers or ex-union officials as administrators.
Former NTEU National Secretary Grahame McCulloch has disgracefully agreed to act as administrator for the Victorian branch.
In NSW it is Phil Pasfield, a barrister who had a name for representing unions. To his eternal shame, Chris Christodoulou, a former Unions NSW Assistant Secretary has also become an administrator.
But this can’t hide the seriousness of the attack.
In Victoria and NSW, a number of companies are either refusing to sign the new EBA or trying to revise it. Some sub-contractors have refused to pay the EBA pay increase.
When the Liberals tried to smash the MUA in 1998, every union backed it, joining picket lines to stop the attempt to put scabs on the wharves. This time, shamefully, the ACTU has backed Albanese and the bosses.
But administration can still be fought.
Opposing administration
The nation-wide rallies on Tuesday 27 August were fantastic. But one strike is not going to be enough to stop Albanese and the Master Builders.
CFMEU members should call for more strikes and a union-wide delegates meeting to show the Labor government and the bosses that administration will face active industrial resistance.
Appeals for solidarity will have to be made directly to the rank-and-file of other unions whose leaderships have gone along with the attack on the CFMEU.
Over 200 NTEU members, including nine branch presidents, have signed a letter condemning their national officials.
Waiting for a High Court challenge to rescue the CFMEU is a mistake. Even if the CFMEU wins in court, the government will just change the legislation, as they have done numerous other times.
The CFMEU is in administration for a minimum of three years—even the Queensland, WA and ACT branches, where there is not a single allegation of corruption or criminality.
In South Australia, a police investigation into the union launched by Labor Premier Peter Malinauskas in July has returned “no evidence of criminal behaviour” in the state. But the Premier has backed administration continuing anyway.
More than 270 elected union officials, including both full-time branch secretaries and construction workers serving on the union’s elected councils, have been sacked.
But Labor’s attack on the right to organise goes even further.
Labor accepted the Liberals’ amendments which mean that hundreds of CFMEU members and officials will be banned from holding office, or any job, in any union, potentially forever, unless they can convince the Fair Work Commission to give them an exemption.
This will apply to the hundreds of officials and elected representatives such as Committee of Management members whose union positions were “vacated” when the administration began, as well as anyone sacked during the administration period.
The government wants to ensure that the union is left as weak as possible even after administration ends.
Labor is waging a full-blooded assault on union militancy. It has instructed the administrator to ensure all CFMEU officials and organisers have a record of past and continued respect for industrial laws.
This is designed to weed out anyone willing to break the Fair Work laws that impose severe restrictions on the right to strike. But in construction in particular, defending safety and workers’ rights on the job depends on breaking bad laws.
The takeover of the union has nothing to do with bikies in the union or unproven allegations of corruption. Labor and the building bosses want to smash union militancy.
Striking back
The wider union movement needs to understand the scale of the attack—and the need for every union member to defend the CFMEU.
Striking back is the only way to resist Labor’s union busting.
Construction bosses everywhere will use administration as a chance to grind down union organisation and undermine EBAs.
At Etex, in Matraville, Sydney, where CFMEU members have been locked out after a one-day strike for their pay claim for 18 per cent over three years, the boss has said openly he will only negotiate with the administrator, not the CFMEU.
Organisation on the job is going to be crucial to holding together the rank-and-file networks of delegates and activists that can fight the boss and administration.
The CFMEU’s Committee of Management has been banned from meeting but a new rank-and-file committee can be elected to maintain democracy and keep rank-and-file control of the union.
Cross-union “Defend the CFMEU” committees can help build solidarity across unions and in the community. The administrator has to know that every attack will be resisted.
The old CFMEU saying, “If provoked, we will strike,” needs to be turned into action.
By Ian Rintoul
