A number of developments have occurred during the past fortnight relating to lifting the standards and behaviours of registered organisations and office holders, including addressing repeated law breaking behaviour of militant unions and their officials.

Court orders union official to pay his own fine

IN a landmark decision for effective deterrent measures, a CFMMEU official has been ordered by the Full Federal Court of Australia to personally pay his penalty for breaking the law, without seeking or receiving financial assistance from the union.

Yesterday’s decision saw CFMMEU official Joseph Myles made personally liable for a $19,500 penalty following his unlawful blockade of the Regional Rail Link project site in May 2013.

In 2013 Mr Myles organised a blockade involving nine vehicles and around 20 individuals during a critical concrete pour preventing trucks from entering the Regional Rail site and resulting in tonnes of concrete going to waste.

In addition, the penalty imposed on the CFMMEU was almost doubled to $111,000 for three contraventions of the Fair Work Act.

The Full Federal Court decision comes after the successful High Court appeal by the Australian Building and Construction Commission ABCC (ABCC) in February this year, which established that courts could order individuals to pay their own fines.

It has been reported in multiple media sources today that the ABCC will pursue similar personal payment orders against more than 20 CFMMEU representatives for fines incurred for law breaking.

AREEA Chief Executive Steve Knott said the decision reinforced that all Australians, including union officials, must comply with the law.

“The decision of the Full Federal Court to impose an individual financial penalty on a law breaking CFMMEU union official is welcomed by Australia’s Resource and Energy Group AREEA,” Mr Knott said.

“This decision will thwart job-destroying illegal strike action together with putting a stop to union members having to pay for deliberate lawbreaking by their elected representatives.”

Read the ABCC’s press release on the decision here.

AREEA urges support for Ensuring Integrity measures

The landmark decision comes as Resources and Energy Group AREEA last week wrote to members of the Australian Senate crossbench, urging them to support the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2017 (“Ensuring Integrity Bill”).

The Ensuring Integrity Bill contains a range of measures seeking to lift the standards, behaviours and transparency of all registered organisations including trade unions and registered employer groups.

The Bill remains before the Federal Parliament, with the government needing nine out of 11 crossbench votes for it to pass.

AREEA’s briefing to crossbench senators detailed how the Ensuring Integrity Bill would have the effect of:

• Improving the ability of an independent arbiter to take appropriate action against Registered Organisations and their officers who fail to meet standards that their members and the community rightfully expect;
• Reinstating a public interest test to apply to Registered Organisations seeking to amalgamate, ensuring amalgamations are in the interests of employers, employees and the broader Australian community; and
• Ensuring all Registered Organisations and their officers consistently operate according to the very laws that empower them with special privileges.

AREEA’s Director Workplace Relations, Amanda Mansini, said the Bill would restore confidence in the conduct and operations of Registered Organisations in Australia.

“Trade unions and registered employer groups alike enjoy special rights and privileges under Australia’s workplace and taxation laws. It is in the national interest to ensure the standards and transparency to which they are held is aligned to those of corporations,” she said.

“The Ensuring Integrity Bill provides our courts and regulators with the tools and powers necessary for appropriate and effective regulation of all such organisations.

“The majority of union representatives in Australia who comply with the law have nothing to fear from either yesterday’s Federal Court judgement or the government’s proposed Bill.

“When this Bill next comes before them for consideration, AREEA encourages crossbench senators to use their vote to better safeguard the Australian community from unlawful conduct by officials of registered organisations, and to assist in the proper democratic function of Australia’s workplace relations system.”

Read AREEA’s letter here.

Fair Work Commission upholds CFMMEU merger

As AREEA lobbied the senate crossbench to support the Ensuring Integrity Bill, a Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission last week upheld the merger of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union and the Maritime Union of Australia.

The decision of Friday 22 June saw the Full Bench dismiss the appeal of AREEA and the Master Builders Association to Deputy President Val Gostencnik’s March 6 decision to allow the formation of the CFMMEU.

AREEA is now consulting with counsel and will make a decision on whether to launch court appeal proceedings in due course.

AREEA Chief Executive Steve Knott said there was “no shortage of AREEA member support to activate such appeal proceedings should that be the course of action determined from our review”.

“It was always considered likely, regardless of which way the decision went, either employer or union representatives may seek to test this FWC decision in the Federal Court or possibly the High Court,” he said.

CFMMEU Senior leadership condoned law-breaking

Meanwhile, in another win for the ABCC, the CFMMEU and three of its officials were fined a total of $142,000 for taking coercive action at a building site on the basis that senior CFMMEU leadership condoned the contravening conduct.

The Federal Court ordered the CFMMEU to pay $120,000, with Theo Theodorou fined $8,500, Rob Graauwmans $7,500 and Izmar Miftari $6,000.

The three CFMMEU officers admitted they stopped critical works and threatened subcontractors at the Carlton site in March 2015.

ABC Commissioner Stephen McBurney said the decision is yet another strong message from the Court to the senior leadership of the CFMMEU that its unlawful behaviour will not be tolerated.

“The unlawful conduct in this case was deliberate and serious,” Mr McBurney said.

Mr McBurney said his agency will continue to respond to unlawful behaviour and present appropriate cases such as this one to the Court to hold contraveners to account.

“The Court found that there was no evidence of any compliance action taken by the CFMMEU to counsel, educate or inform other officers and members to prevent the reoccurrence of contravening conduct in the future,” he said.

“The challenge for the CFMMEU is whether it will choose to comply with the law.”

Read the ABCC’s press release on the decision here.

AREEA is available to provide briefings to members on any of the matters covered in this News Update article. Please contact [email protected] in the first instance.