|
While more detail of Labor’s industrial relations legislation is yet to emerge, the intention to retain the anti-worker Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) until January 2010 is causing a lot of anger and dismay among union members and supporters.
This shabby outfit was cooked up by the Howard government as part of its union-bashing agenda on behalf of the Business Council of Australia, along with the discredited WorkChoices package and other laws restricting workplace organisation and rights. It was targetted squarely at the building industry unions, particularly the CFMEU and ETU – unions with a proud record of standing by their members and playing a leading role in the trade union movement.
It set up surveillance teams, used ‘kangaroo court’ interview techniques, bullied decent workers with threats of fines and imprisonment, gagged them from informing their families, and generally behaved in an openly fascist manner. It even banned the Eureka flag on building sites!
The outrageous behaviour of the ABCC was calculated to intimidate the whole of the working class and serve as a warning to others not to take the path of struggle. While its plans were not hugely successful and were roundly condemned by the Australian people, it was just a taste of what Howard and Co. had in store for all other workers if they had won the election.
The Business Council heavies know that a severe economic downturn is coming. They know that workers will struggle to protect their standard of living, to keep wage levels in pace with inflation, to cope with higher interests rates. They know that a strong and united union movement is a formidable line of defence for the working class and its allies, and they want to weaken it and break it.
Where they were successful was in containing average wage increases to about 4 percent for almost a decade during a period of relative full employment and economic boom.
Normally, in such conditions, workers are able to sweep a few more crumbs off the bosses’ table, able to put on a bit of fat for the winter when it comes.
Well, it looks like winter is coming early this year – in the form of rising food costs, petrol prices, interest re-payments, rent increases and water, gas and electricity charges.
Meanwhile, the portion of national wealth going to company profits increased enormously during this period, just like the executive salaries paid to the richest corporate profiteers, whether successful or not.
While the Howard government has been blown away, its monopoly patrons still dominate and control the economy, and still have the ear of government.
During the election campaign, Julia Gillard spent many weeks hob-knobbing with the so-called ‘captains of industry’ and agreed to keep the ABCC in place for a further two years. In other words, the threat to the working class is still there and the Rudd government will “come down like a ton of bricks” on ‘illegal industrial action’.
This has only encouraged the ABCC Rambo’s. They persisted in a Federal Court case in December against 91 Western Australian construction workers who stopped work on the Mandurah railway site in 2006, over the sacking of a mate who raised health and safety issues. Even though the employer Leighton Kumagai was able to reach agreement with the union, the ABCC case won in court and the workers were fined $10,000 each.
As ACTU President Sharan Burrow said at the time, “These fines are heavy-handed and show the unfairness of the former Howard government’s industrial relations laws. Given that the original dispute that led to the stop work action was resolved to the mutual satisfaction of both the workers and the employer, the legal action brought by the ABCC was totally unnecessary and the fines unwarranted.”
But then she added, “The union movement is determined to stand by the WA construction workers and their families and to help them with their legal costs and fines.”
With justice and commonsense on its side, it is amazing to see the ACTU meekly accepting that these victimised workers should be paying fines at all!
Surely the proper response of national union leadership in this case should be to launch a campaign to close down the ABCC right now, not put up with its legal games and continuing anti-union attacks? |
