CFMMEU officials tell worker to fined $428,000 over workplace breaches at Adelaide Airport

The abuse of a worker on a building site has helped the state’s construction union earn a record penalty for workplace breaches.

The CFMEU, now called the CFMMEU, has amassed more than $2m in fines for workplace breaches in SA.

The nation’s powerful construction union has copped a record penalty for breaches of workplace laws including the abuse of a construction worker at Adelaide Airport.

The Federal Court today fined the CFMMEU and six officials $428,250 ruling they refused to show right-of-entry permits, ignored directions and bullied workers during the $165m expansion of the airport in 2019.

The Australian Building and Construction Commission, which launched the prosecution, said the fine represented the highest penalties imposed on any case it had brought in SA since the agency was re-established in 2016.

The unlawful conduct occurred over three months in 2019 during the upgrade to the airport’s international arrivals and departures area and construction of new shopping and dining facilities.

The court heard that union representatives Desmond Savage and Te Aranui Albert attended the site on June 20, 2019 and repeatedly abused an employee of construction company Watpac.

The court heard the pair said to the employee “f**k you, I’m not dealing with you”, “you’re a f***ing idiot” and “go do your f***king colouring in books you c***”.

Federal Court judge Richard White said the language used by the pair went “well beyond coarseness … They were a form of abuse”.

The court heard that on April 3, 2019 union officials Alex Tadic, Anthony Sloane and Adrian

McManus attended the construction site citing suspected safety concerns.

When asked to present their entry permits, Mr McManus, who was the only permit holder, failed to do so and Mr Tadic said: “We don’t have to show these to you” and “We don’t have them, and we will be going on site anyway”, the court heard.

Adelaide Airport managing director Mark Young and chairman Rob Chapman at the announcement of the $165m airport expansion

On May 23, 2019, union official Clarence Fellowes attended the site citing suspected safety concerns. Mr Fellowes refused to produce his entry permit and refused a lawful direction to attend the site office.

The next day he and Mr McManus ignored management signs requiring them to report to the site office and be inducted. They also refused to follow clear directions to report to the site office to sign in.

The fine is the latest in a string of penalties slapped against the CFMMEU and its officials for right-of-entry breaches on SA building sites totalling $2.239m.

Judge White said “multiple penalties on the CFMMEU in the recent past does not appear to have had any effect on its conduct”.

“The CFMMEU did not adduce any evidence of an intention to ‘mend its ways’, of having

taken corrective action, or of having taken action directed to ensuring that its organisers comply with the law in the exercise of their rights of entry,” he said in his judgement.

ABCC Commissioner Stephen McBurney said the officials’ repeated refusal to comply with their legal right of entry obligations demonstrated their disdain for the both the rule of law and the legal obligations that apply to Federal permit holders.

“The verbal abuse on any measure is unacceptable. No worker in any Australian workplace should have to endure such a tirade,” he said.