Keep Our Umpire

Keep our Independent Umpire

The independent umpire was established to keep the peace on Aussie worksites, and was given powers to pursue both bosses and employees for unfair practices at work.

Having an independent umpire in place is vitally important. It means workers and bosses on Australian construction and building sites cannot be intimidated or discriminated against as they go about the job of keeping Australia working.

But the powers of our independent umpire are now under threat, with elements of the union movement running a concerted campaign to either get rid of the umpire altogether or destroy its powers.

If this is allowed to happen Australian workers will once again see a return to the bad old days – at a time when we are being asked to work together to face the challenges of the global financial crisis.

Why do we need an independent umpire?

It was just a few years ago when an inquiry into Australia’s building and construction industry found that without a truly independent umpire, Australia’s economy was suffering – costing Australians both opportunities and jobs.

To make matters worse, Australian workers were facing daily problems at work such as:

§ The abuse of their freedom to choose whether or not they wanted to join a union

§ Their jobs being put at risk due to illegal industrial pressure and strikes

§ Standards of occupational health and safety were being abused

§ Subcontractors were being forced to have union-endorsed agreements before being permitted to commence work on major projects

§ Employees of subcontractors were being forced to become union members.

§ Corrupt payments were being made by contractors to unions, or at the direction of unions, to keep the work

§ Threats were being made against non-unionised workers.

Ways You can Take Action Now to protect our umpire: