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Labor failing to handle union conduct, AREEA tells PM

AREEA last week sent a follow-up letter to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd asking why concerns raised in earlier correspondence about union bullying, intimidation and unlawful behaviour on Australian worksites have not yet been managed.

The letter followed a number of developments in recent weeks, including:

  • A Queensland newspaper report indicating a union official could face legal action after abusing Fair Work Building & Construction inspectors as ‘a pair of c—s’, ‘scum’ and ‘piece(s) of sh-t’;
  • Media reports that unionised workers on a WA construction project ‘turned on their colleagues’ and called fellow non-union workers ‘scabs’ over accommodation matters; and
  • Australia’s biggest construction union, the CMFEU, launched a $1 million anti-Coalition campaign.

AREEA chief executive Steve Knott said it was unfortunate to see no decline in union-driven unlawfulness, intimidation and bullying on construction sites.

“This anti-productive behaviour has been unleashed by naive workplace changes including neutering the construction industry’s IR watchdog in 2012, and now failing to provide explicit protection against union bullying in its draft national code on workplace bullying,” Mr Knott said.

“Recent aggression and abuse by trade union officials and supporters sits at odds with national commitments through Safe Work Australia to stamp out workplace bullying, which seems only to concern the Labor government when its industrial wing is not the perpetrator.”

In June 2012, Labor replaced the Australian Building and Construction Commission with its new Fair Work Building and Construction inspectorate. The accompanying legislative changes restricted the inspectorate’s ability to hold unions accountable for unlawful activity and coercive behaviour on building sites, and significantly reduced penalties for those found to be in breach.

AREEA recently compared the workplace policies of the three leading political parties in its 2013 IR Election Scorecard, which shows only the Coalition has addressed the concerns of employers and the community by committing to restore the pre-Labor ABCC and address bullying by trade unions.

“Any workplace relations system that allows trade union officials to bully the working people they represent needs fixing,” Mr Knott said.

“Whichever party wins government in 2013 must protect its own staff and working people in the construction industry from being called scum, maggots and dogs as we’ve seen in recent examples.

“AREEA’s letter to the Prime Minister urged for the swift return of a tough cop to the beat on our building sites and that any anti-bullying laws should apply equally to trade unions and employers.”

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