CFMEU leader quits ALP

BY NIKKI ULASOWSKI

PERTH — “I've been knocked off by the Tories, I've been knocked off
by stinking grubby builders, I've been knocked off by the [building industry]
task force, but it was a bit hard to cop getting knocked off by the Labor
Party”, Joe McDonald, assistant secretary of the Construction, Forestry,
Mining and Energy Union (WA) told Green Left Weekly.

He was referring to charges recently brought against him by the state
ALP government, which has accused him of breaking freedom of association
provisions of the Industrial Relations Act. These provisions, introduced
by the previous Coalition, anti-union, government, are designed to limit
union's ability to recruit members.

McDonald said the charges relating to alleged use of standover tactics
to sign up workers on a demolition site had been announced in parliament
by ALP industrial relations minister John Kobelke without any prior notification
to the CFMEU. After being fined $1000 by the Industrial Magistrates Court,
McDonald announced his resignation from the party. He said that he was
now Premier Geoff Gallop's “worst nightmare”. Quoted in the West Australian,
McDonald said: “It's just another act of treachery from Gallop, Kobelke
and the whole bloody lot of them. As of today, I'm finished with the Labor
Party and I've resigned.”

He told GLW: “The only hope for the worker is through collective
muscle through the union. They are not going to get anything from the Labor
Party. They are getting carved up everywhere”.

From Green Left Weekly, October 16, 2002.

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From GLW issue 512