BY SAM WAINWRIGHT
SYDNEY — On August 28, 5000 workers, chanting "Stop the bias, stop the lies, hands off the union!", marched down George Street before rallying outside the Family Court in Goulburn Street. High above the spirited rally, on the building's seventh floor, the building industry royal commission was sitting. Workers at the construction site next door swung a crane in front of the court's windows to give commissioner Terence Cole a view of union flags flying from the hook.
The royal commission was established by the federal government to dirty the name of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), one of the country's strongest unions, so as to generate support for the next round of anti-union legislation.
CFMEU construction and general division national secretary John Sutton explained to the workers that the commission was biased. It is being presided over by Cole, a conservative QC, who is being paid $334 an hour by the taxpayers. Sutton compared that to the $13.62 an hour earned by labourers.
A steady stream of bosses, and others who may have a grudge against the union, have appeared before Cole to make unsubstantiated accusations of violence, intimidation, corruption and other misdeeds against CFMEU organisers and officials.
The union's lawyers do not have the opportunity to immediately cross examine the accusers, the union is not allowed to respond until long after the lurid headlines in the big business newspapers have done their damage and the accusers are immune from defamation action. As Sutton declared: "We will never get justice on the seventh floor of that building."
The latest headline-grabbing charge to come out of the royal commission is an allegation of collaboration between former CFMEU official Craig Bates and the notorious crime underworld figure, Tom Domican. It is alleged that Bates pushed crane contracts to a company favoured by Domican in return for personal payments of $50,000 for each job. It also alleged that Domican provided support for Bates' efforts to defeat NSW branch secretary Andrew Ferguson in the union's elections. The CFMEU has not denied the story and points out that Bates left the union two years ago.
The corporate media have been very willing to help the government generate an image of criminal and thug unionism. On August 29, the Sydney Morning Herald ran an article titled "Viagra for votes as inquiry airs dirty laundry", a reference to an allegation that Bates made money selling unprescribed Viagra. Of course, the SMH did not even mention the workers' rally held the previous day.
With most enterprise agreements in the building industry set to expire in the latter part of the year, CFMEU is gearing up for an industry-wide claim that will include a 36-hour week. Sutton pledged that the union would not be intimidated away from this course by the royal commission and the federal government's rhetoric. "We will take the action we need to take to win our next enterprise bargaining round", Sutton announced.
The protesting building workers held aloft 10 coffins at the August 28 rally, symbolising workplace deaths. An average of almost one death a week takes place in the building industry and the NSW branch of the CFMEU has been campaigning for the royal commission to investigate breaches of safety standards by employers. The royal commission has only made token references to the issue despite receiving hundreds of pages of detailed submissions from the union.
"Stick with your unions, they're the only ones who'll look after you" was the impassioned appeal by Robyn McGoldrick. McGoldrick's 17-year-old sone Dean died from a fall on a Broadway building site just two weeks after moving to Sydney from Tamworth. She explained that there was no scaffolding where Dean was working, he was not wearing a safety harness and had not been given any safety training.
McGoldrick was appalled at the leniency with which employers responsible for workplace deaths are treated. This means that they have no incentive to improve safety, she said. The employer responsible for her son's death was fined a paltry $20,000; appropriate scaffolding that would have prevented Dean's death would have cost $24,000.
At a recent royal commission hearing, a Multiplex boss complained of the pressure he had been put under to cover the wages and entitlements of employees of failed sub-contractors. Commissioner Cole suggested that it was "extortion" for the CFMEU to threaten industrial action to secure these payments. At the rally, NSW CFMEU secretary Andrew Ferguson angrily rejected this claim. He was flanked by a worker and his family members whose entitlements had be recovered by the union in this way. Ferguson flatly rejected as morally wrong the idea that workers should have to "wait in line" behind banks and other corporate creditors when a business failed.
A contingent of around 200 miners from the Hunter Valley, Victoria and Collinsvale in Queensland also joined the rally. There were contingents from the Maritime Union of Australia, the Nurses Federation and the Socialist Alliance (whose banner, "Lock up bosses who kill", was loudly cheered). Former NSW Builders Labourers Federation leader Jack Mundey declared that the commission was "one of the biggest political stunts we've seen in years".
On August 30, the CFMEU NSW branch launched legal action in the Federal Court to commissioner Cole disqualified, arguing that he was biased against the union.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, September 4, 2002.
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