Protesters call on PM to abolish ABCC

"Abolish the ABCC! Support rights of building workers!" was the message on protesters' placards outside PM Kevin Rudd's electorate office in Morningside on August 8.

The picket called for the abolition of the Howard-era Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), a special industrial police force set up under the Howard government to attack building unions and their members. The federal Labor government has not disbanded it.

"A Victorian [building] union official, Noel Washington, faces six months' in jail for simply refusing to tell the ABCC who attended a union meeting held outside work hours. Yet, the Rudd government refuses to act!", Maggie May, spokesperson for WorkLife, the workers' rights coalition which organised the protest, said the previous day. WorkLife will screen the hard-hitting film exposing the ABCC, Constructing Fear, on August 28 [see the calendar on page 23].

From GLW issue 762