The fight against the administration of CFMEU is reaching a major turning point.
In late February, the Labor government-appointed administrator, Mark Irving, handed down a 94-page report to parliament about his work in the past six months.
Irving said he was waiting for the High Court decision on the union challenge to Labor’s law that imposed administration before pushing ahead further with the “cleaning out of the union”.
Uncertainty about the court outcome had stymied his efforts, he claimed. The decision is expected this month.
The media has also speculated that Irving is waiting until after the election to escalate the attacks on the union.
Irving’s report also confirmed that his aim is to break the militant union tradition of the CFMEU.
It declared that, “In the five years before the commencement of the Administration the CFMEU and its officers have been found to have breached industrial laws on 1163 occasions and incurred $10,628,861 in penalties …
“Unlawful conduct and simply paying enormous penalties had become part of the business model of the union. This must end.”
But these are breaches of industrial laws, not criminal matters. The Fair Work Act imposes some of the most extreme restrictions on strike action in the Western world. The CFMEU has been right to defy the law to stand up for safety and workers’ rights.
This is the real reason for administration and the targeting of the CFMEU—not any alleged “criminality”.
The bulk of Irving’s report to Parliament consists of three items. The first is the work of lawyer Geoffrey Watson from September, who the union appointed to conduct an investigation before the administration was even imposed.
Another concerns the supposed “recovery” of $3.15 million belonging to the NSW branch. It was being held by the lawyers of sacked NSW Secretary Darren Greenfield and Assistant Secretary Michael Greenfield to cover estimated legal costs the union agreed to pay over their corruption charges dating back to 2021. Both maintain their innocence.
The last item recommends a single official, former SA Secretary Marcus Pare, face further investigation and possible charges. While it’s claimed he was in contact with former bikie gang members, most of the allegations against him relate to misuse of union entitlements.
After six months, not one of the 270 elected officials of the CFMEU who Irving sacked in August has been charged with any crime, despite all the media mudslinging, especially from the Nine Papers. Irving, however, is desperately digging around to dredge up charges to justify the government takeover.
Delegates meeting
The combination of the imminent High Court decision on the challenge to administration and the looming federal election means the Victorian Building Industry Group of unions (BIG) joint delegates’ meeting on 26 March comes at a critical moment.
How the BIG unions, including the 600 CFMEU delegates, Electrical Trades Union (ETU), Plumbers Union (CEPU) and the Construction Division of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), respond at the joint delegates meeting is crucial.
The meeting needs to be the springboard to call a national strike and protest against administration if the High Court case fails—not just for an election campaign to “Put Dutton Last”.
The signs are not good that the Victorian BIG unions will launch an industrial fightback. They have consistently refused to call stopwork protests since the last national strike on 18 September, on the basis that the High Court challenge was the way to win.
Individual state branches in NSW and Queensland have called one-day strikes.
The two one-day strike protests in Queensland, most recently on 19 February, have targeted the newly-elected LNP government’s decision to rip up the Best Practice in Construction agreement, re-tendering government construction projects without the CFMEU and ripping up the heat policy—which allows work to stop when it reaches 35 degrees.
A breakaway section of the February rally marched to the Queensland Council of Unions building to protest the decision by its Assistant Secretary Jared Abbott to take on the job as the administration’s Executive Officer of the Queensland CFMEU.
The stopwork rallies in NSW and Queensland have both gone ahead in the face of opposition from the administration.
But in Victoria, Troy Gray of the ETU and Zach Smith, National Secretary of the CFMEU and the administrator’s appointed Victorian Executive Officer since mid-September, have not called any further action.
Instead they have put their hopes in the High Court challenge, funded by the ETU, Plumbers and AMWU at a cost of $1.2 million.
Rank-and-file members and delegates’ need to pressure the BIG unions to call a national strike and protest if the court case fails—and to start planning for industrial action to fight administration.
By Tom Orsag, CFMEU member
