Sue Bolton, Melbourne
When it introduced the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Bill 2005 on March 9, the federal government picked out building industry workers for special laws that will restrict their industrial rights even more than those of other workers.
The government will attempt to negotiate the legislation through the Senate with the support of independents and smaller parties prior to the Coalition parties taking control of the Senate on July 1.
However, the government isn't banking on getting it through the Senate before July, so its back-up plan is to make the legislation retrospective — to March 9.
Some of the provisions of the new legislation include:
- Banning collective agreements from including retrospective pay rises.
- Outlawing agreements from having provisions which force subcontractors to have a union agreement before coming on site.
- Banning pattern bargaining, where unions seek common pay deals across hundreds of different employers.
- Introducing penalties of up to $110,000 for unions and up to $22,000 for individuals for engaging in unprotected industrial action.
- Requiring unions to hold secret ballots of their members before taking protected industrial action, including on urgent health and safety issues.
- Introducing a mandatory 21-day cooling off period after two weeks of protected industrial action.
The government's rush to get the legislation into parliament and then make it retrospective is to give encouragement to building companies to play hardball with the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union as the CFMEU seeks to renegotiate several thousand enterprise agreements before July.
Most agreements don't expire until October or November. The union is seeking to renew its agreements before they expire, so that it doesn't have to negotiate them after the government wins control of the Senate and passes draconian anti-union legislation.
According to CFMEU national secretary John Sutton in a March 9 press release, the federal government sent a letter to employers in early March promising to help fund them on a case by case basis in their enterprise agreement negotiations. Contractors who experience delays due to industrial action on government jobs will not be faced with liquidated damages.
The letters have also threatened employers with loss of federal government contracts if they sign up to collectively negotiated enterprise agreements before October.
The legislation introduced into parliament gives the government's Building Industry Task Force the power to initiate prosecutions against unions and individuals when companies refuse to initiate prosecutions. Once the legislation is passed, the Australian Building and Construction Commission will be established to take over from the Building Industry Task Force.
However, the Building Industry Task Force hasn't waited for special new legislation to flex its muscles. In February, it sent hundreds of threatening letters to the homes of Western Australian construction workers who work on the Metro Rail Project. The letters threatened fines of $6500 against CFMEU members who took strike action three months ago against Leightons Kumagai for breaching established practice on night work. The dispute was resolved through an agreement that workers other than tunnellers were not required to do night work.
Leightons did not involve the Building Industry Task Force in the dispute, and yet the task force took matters into its own hands, sending threatening letters to workers months after the dispute was resolved.
Meanwhile, the federal government is trying to co-opt state Labor governments into assisting its drive against the CFMEU in the construction industry. It has told state governments that they must sign the National Building Code of Practice before they can receive federal funding under the $12 billion Auslink road and rail program.
The national building code prevents state governments from excluding contractors who don't have a union agreement. It also restricts unions' right of entry to work sites and bans unions from seeking above-award pay and conditions for projects.
South Australia accepted the federal government's building code late last year. On February 8, Victorian Premier Steve Bracks' government signed on to the code. All the other state governments have refused to comply with the code and its guidelines, accusing Canberra of trying to bribe them into conforming with its industrial agenda.
The Victorian Trades Hall Council has passed a motion condemning the Bracks government for failing to consult with Victorian unions before capitulating to the Howard government's agenda.
From Green Left Weekly, March 16, 2005.
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