Labor has struck a shocking deal with the Liberals to pass savage new legislation allowing the takeover and gutting of the CFMEU, in one of the most appalling acts of union-busting in decades.
Resistance is urgent. Efforts to mobilise now can help limit the damage and hold union and workplace organisation together as much as possible. Yet shamefully the ACTU and most other union leaders have isolated the CFMEU and gone along with Labor’s anti-union attack.
The CFMEU has put too much faith in the courts or lobbying Labor MPs to go easy.
But the full scale of Labor’s assault on the construction union is now clear. Labor’s Industrial Relations Minister, Murray Watt, has boasted of launching, “The strongest action that any government has ever taken against any union.”
Labor has collaborated with the Liberals to ensure the success of its attack—accepting a series of amendments that impose even more draconian measures.
Labor will impose an administrator with dictatorial powers over every branch of the CFMEU for a minimum of three years—even over the WA and ACT branches, as well as the Queensland branch. There is not a single allegation of corruption or criminality against any of these three branches.
Minister Murray Watt will have the power to dictate the scheme that will control the union—including which officials are sacked, the administrator’s powers to sack other union organisers and expel union members, changes to the union rules and when new union elections are called.
Watt has says he wants to implement plans already drawn up by the Fair Work Commission that list officials for removal and would seize control of the union’s finances and assets. He will also give the administrator the power to dispose of any union assets or property.
More than 270 elected union officials, including both full-time branch secretaries and construction workers serving on the union’s elected councils, are tagged for sacking.
But Labor’s assault on the union goes even further.
Hundreds of CFMEU members and officials will be banned from holding office, or any job, in any union, potentially forever, as a result of the Liberals’ demands, unless they can convince the Fair Work Commission to give them an exemption.
This will apply to the hundreds of officials and elected representatives in the union sacked when administration begins, as well as anyone sacked during the administration period.
It is meant to ensure that the union is left as weak as possible even after administration ends. And it restricts any effort to set up another union.
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 anti-union and anti-strike Fair Work laws that impose endless restrictions on strike action and make effective union activity almost impossible. But in construction in particular, defending safety and workers’ rights on the job depends on breaking bad laws.
Fightback needed
A statement from the Building Industry Group of unions in Victoria, which includes the ETU, AMWU, the plumbers’ union and the CFMEU, rightly declared, “This legislation represents the greatest attack on workers’ democracy in a century—delivered by a Labor government.”
A mass meeting that the Building Industry Group indicated would happen “in due course” three weeks ago hasn’t yet been called.
Instead the union has shown a totally misplaced faith that the administration process could be fought in the courts. It now complains that by using legislation, “The Government has undermined the legal process and stripped us of our rights to a fair process.”
But the Labor government has been clear all along that it would legislate to break the union and prevent any challenge in the courts.
Labor and the building bosses want to smash union militancy. The Fair Work Commission made their aim clear in the court application for administration.
It claims the union has broken industrial laws 2600 times in the last 20 years, citing the millions of dollars in fines imposed for unlawful strikes, union entry to workplaces and industrial action. Those fines were imposed because the CFMEU has a proud tradition of breaking bad laws to defend wages and safety.
There is an urgent need for mass meetings and stopwork rallies to resist Labor’s attack. Union members have been bombarded with weeks of media attacks on the CFMEU. Meetings and mass protests can expose the media lies and Labor’s anti-union propaganda.
Far too few people across the wider union movement understand the scale of the attack on the CFMEU—and the need for wider support. Instead of organising industry-wide support for the CFMEU, shamefully the ACTU has gone along with the Labor government.
The ACTU is kidding itself if it thinks other unions won’t be attacked. Bosses everywhere are licking their lips.
Now, in the face of administration, the CFMEU needs to send a signal that it will fight. This is the only way to resist Labor’s appalling union busting. If workers get a lead, there is a willingness to fight. Some CFMEU jobs have already carried resolutions to strike if the union was put under administration.
Mobilising CFMEU members now is also vital to holding together rank-and-file networks of union delegates and activists through the period of administration. Construction bosses everywhere will seize on administration as a chance to grind down union organisation and push the CFMEU off building sites.
Enforcement of EBAs on all site sub-contractors will be one of the first things attacked in the attempt to break down wages and conditions.
The administrator of the union will be able to dictate what any union organisers can do to enforce safety and EBAs.
Organisation on construction sites is going to be crucial to holding the union together. We need strikes and demonstrations in every state to oppose Labor’s union busting. CFMEU sites should walk off the job. Every union activist should demand their union backs the CFMEU.
Starting a fightback now is critical to ensuring the survival of the CFMEU and the future of militant unionism.
