Noel Washington is a senior vice-president of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) in Victoria. He has been a union organiser for 27 years. On December 2, simply for doing his job well, he faces a possible jail sentence under laws supported by the federal Labor government.
As a unionist in the construction industry, Washington confronts different laws to all other workers in Australia. The former Coalition government passed the so-called Building and Construction Industry Improvement (BCII) Act in August 2005, one of the first laws it rammed through after taking control of both houses of parliament in 2004.
The BCII Act established the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), a secret police in the construction industry that has the power to interrogate workers in closed sessions and bring legal actions against workers and unions. The ABCC uses its powers to clamp down on construction workers' ability to organise and defend their workplace rights.
"Every day I feel I'm constantly looking over my shoulder", Washington told Green Left Weekly on November 21. "The ABCC inspectors actively set out to make the work of an organiser complicated. They look for any reason to prosecute union members and union officials. They also encourage employers to take a hostile approach to unions."
Any person summonsed before the ABCC is required by law to attend and answer all questions. They are forbidden to discuss the interrogation with anyone and they have no right to choose their own lawyer.
Washington is the first person to refuse to appear before the ABCC when summonsed.
The ABCC wants to ask Washington questions about a union meeting held at Bovis Lend Lease in 2007. "I'm not going to talk about what happened at a union meeting. I'm not going to give up workers, our members or any official of the union", he told the CFMEU's campaign bulletin, Worker Express.
"It's important that people realise that this is an attack not just on me or my union, but on the 900,000 construction workers in Australia", Washington told GLW. "This legislation has singled out a group of workers and their unions, and made them subject to outrageous penalties for simply defending their rights at work."
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Under section 52 of the BCII Act, any person who refuses to attend an ABCC interrogation or answer any question asked is liable to six months' jail for contempt.
At its April 2007 national conference, the ALP voted to abolish the ABCC. However, on May 30 that year industrial relations spokesperson Julia Gillard reneged on the promise. "Under a Rudd Labor government there will not be a single moment where our construction industry is without a strong cop on the beat", she threatened, promising to keep the ABCC until February 2010 and then incorporate its functions into a specialist division within Fair Work Australia (FWA), which is to replace the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.
Labor commissioned former federal court judge Murray Wilcox to investigate the ABCC's powers and make recommendations on the powers of the new specialist division that will replace it. In a discussion paper Wilcox released on October 3, he admitted that the ABCC was "discriminatory" against construction workers.
Wilcox also said that the ABCC contravenes no fewer than six sections of the International Labour Organisation's Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948.
Nevertheless, Wilcox did not call for the ABCC's abolition. He argued that the ABCC's more draconian powers — to compel people to talk in secret sessions — be included in the new division, but that there be greater review of that power by either the FWA president or an "independent" board established to oversee the special division's operations.
"The findings of the Wilcox review to my mind simply reinforce that the powers held by the ABCC are completely unwarranted and discriminatory", Washington said. "The fact of the matter is that there is no place for a body like the ABCC in a democratic country like Australia that discriminates against one group of workers."
The jailing of a union official for refusing to "give up" workers is an assault on all workers' right to organise. If union organisers are forced to answer questions about union meetings to secret police like the ABCC, union members will no longer feel safe discussing union business.
All unionists must support Washington in his important stand for democratic rights. Demonstrations against the ABCC are being held around Australia on December 2.
When Victorian Tramways Union secretary Clarrie O'Shea was jailed by the Liberal government in 1969 for refusing to pay $8100 in fines, more than 1 million unionists across the country went on strike to demand that O'Shea be freed and the penal powers be abolished. After six days of action, O'Shea was released and the penal powers were not used again.
"I really appreciate all the support I've been given over the last few months," Washington told GLW. "This is much bigger than what is happening to me. These laws are discriminatory, and to my mind, a human rights matter. These laws should be the concern of every person, not just those in the construction industry."