Sue Bull, Melbourne
Anonymous late-night phone calls, threats of jail for non-appearance at interviews or for withholding information, allegations of illegal conduct at events up to two years previously and closed courts — such police-state tactics are totally legal when used by the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) task force investigating allegations of illegal industrial activity by workers in the industry.
No wonder Martin Kingham, Victorian secretary of the construction division of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), said of one task force interrogation that it was like "a star chamber with powers that would make Stalin blush". Criminal defence lawyer Rob Stary said that "if you commit a serious criminal offence you have more rights" than are granted to construction workers by the ABCC. "You have a right against self-incrimination, you have a right to silence."
The restrictions on workers' legal rights under the Howard government's new construction industry laws are strikingly similar to those applying to terrorism suspects under the government's anti-terrorism laws. They are designed to intimidate workers into siding with their bosses, rather than their workmates, and thereby severely weaken unions' ability to defend their members' wages and conditions.
Just as the anti-terrorism laws operate with a cloak of secrecy, so do the government's anti-union laws. As one CFMEU bulletin noted: "The government is playing a crooked game of hide and seek with this shadowy group."
The treatment of individual building workers is very similar to that meted out to terrorism suspects. Take the case of Brodene Wardley, a single mother of three from Portland. Wardley is a crane driver, a member of the CFMEU and an occupational health and safety representative at Roche Mining's mineral sands processing plant near Hamilton in western Victoria.
Wardley received a letter from the ABCC task force saying she would be jailed if she did not appear before a task force hearing in Portland in early May. She was to answer questions about her workmates taking unprotected industrial action at the plant in late 2005. The Roche workers took action for 36 hours after a busload of them on their way to work had nearly been killed at an unsafe railway crossing right outside the plant's front gate.
Wardley was subjected to nearly four hours of interrogation. The interview was closed to all except the five interrogators and Stary, Wardley's lawyer. The clerk of courts and the local police were banished during the hearing. Local news reporters were told that if they gathered and withheld relevant information, they could be jailed.
Wardley said the hearing was intimidating and exhausting. "I'm just a mum trying to earn a living and trying to take on another role on the job with OH&S because I believe in the right to a safe workplace and this is what I ended up doing — getting dragged through court", she said.
Stary told Green Left Weekly that he was extremely worried about the sinister nature of the task force and what it does to ordinary workers. He said the process was criminalising workers for taking industrial action that they believed to be justifiable for the protection of their health and safety. He feels the task force is acting like ASIO or the Australian Crime Commission, except it investigates industrial disputation rather than criminal activity.
A spokesperson for federal workplace minister Kevin Andrews said the Cole royal commission into the building industry had recommended coercive powers be given to the new body to protect employees from intimidation and thuggery. "The powers are only used after all investigative tools have been exhausted", the spokesperson said, adding that the powers could only compel a person to supply data relevant to an investigation into a breach of the Work Choices laws.
In response, Kingham said: "I don't know how long people are going to be fooled by this, because trying to save yourself and your workmates from being injured doesn't sound like intimidation and thuggery to me. Being asked to swear an oath in a court from which the public have been excluded and give 'evidence' under threat of six months' jail sounds more like intimidation."
Wardley's experience with the ABCC task force bears a close resemblance to a situation in Queensland where CFMEU members were hunted by lawyers acting for the federal government to prosecute them over industrial action taken at the end of 2004. The unionists had objected to their accommodation at a work site near Moranbah being infested with rats, feral cats and sewage.
Eighteen months later, the government threatened the workers with fines of up to $20,000 each. Significantly, their employer, Eagle Engineering, saw the issue as having been resolved. When unions spread the news about the harassment of these workers, the government panicked and dropped the case.
More and more CFMEU shop stewards and members have started coming forward with stories about mysterious phone calls received at home asking them if they attended a particular meeting as far back as two years ago and if they would be prepared to give evidence. One shop steward was recently charged by the task force, and found guilty in court, of "intimidation" after stopping a sub-contractor who was not paying the correct wages under the enterprise agreement. He was fined and so was the CFMEU.
The Work Choices laws, coupled with the task force's powers, are now being used in a pincer-like attack on the CFMEU. When 25 construction workers at a Port Melbourne site stopped work for 20 minutes on April 11 to collect money for the widow of Christos Binos, a 59-year-old CFMEU member who was killed when a concrete panel collapsed, they were docked four hours' pay. Their boss was forced to do this by the Work Choices laws or face penalties himself.
This penalty has been challenged and overturned, but it is now awaiting appeal. If the appeal is upheld, it will be complusory for construction bosses to dock four hours' pay from employees who stop work for virtually any reason. And if the task force wants to, it can investigate the incident as an illegal industrial action, slapping fines on workers and their union.
The singling out of militant unions by the ABCC has become very blatant. On one Victorian building site a CFMEU steward received a written direction from his employer to take down the union flag. The letter admitted that displaying the flag was not illegal, but that it had to come down as it might be seen as 'coercing' employees into joining the union.
A CFMEU bulletin notes: "The union admits that the sight of the CFMEU flag always stirs the spirit of our members, but we can't vouch for it having any magical coercive powers ... What's next — a government ban on union beanies, hard-hat stickers and jackets??!"
In Victoria, there have been three deaths in the construction industry since March. Compare this with the previous 14 months when there was not a single death. All OH&S studies show that where a union presence is strong and conscious about safety, workers are much safer. The increasing task force attacks on workers and their unions reveal that the Howard government is prepared to risk workers' lives in the pursuit of its anti-union crusade.
From Green Left Weekly, June 7, 2006.
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