Opinion: Public servants ripped off by unions to tune of $22m

The Opposition has claimed that two of the state’s biggest unions are corrupt, and ripping off members to the tune of millions, writes Des Houghton.

I was amazed by the media indifference to the allegations in State Parliament that two of the state’s biggest unions are corrupt.

Shadow attorney-general Jarrod Bleijie also told the House that the Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union and the Queensland Teachers’ Union ripped off their members with high fees.

It’s a significant story because both unions represent more than 114,000 frontline public servants who I believe are routinely bullied, overworked and underpaid.

It is an issue that goes to the heart of the integrity crisis, yet the story went unreported by the ABC and the electronic media that I could see.

Bleijie went to Parliament all guns blazing. I think it was one of his finest speeches.

“I want to give the House some transparency with respect to corruption in Queensland involving the Labor Party and their association with the union movement in the state of Queensland,” he began.

He referred to Courier-Mail disclosures that the Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union was allowed to vet internal communications for Queensland Health.

That’s right; private government matters sent to unelected outsiders.

Jarrod Bleijie in Question Time recently

Reporter Hayden Johnson’s recent story featured an email trail between industrial relations staff with the QNMU.

“The paper revealed that not only were the nurses’ union getting advance copies of a secret government document; they were helping to draft it,” Bleijie told the House.

“Not only were they drafting it; they were editing it!”

He added: “When the nurses’ union is not only editing a government document with respect to government policy but making a direct attack on competition, that is corruption.”

He called for a Crime and Corruption Commission investigation.

He added: “I say to Queensland nurses and to Queensland teachers: You are being ripped off by the unions.”

Bleijie told the House the State Labor Government was trying to discredit new independent unions that charged half the fees and had no allegiance to the ALP.

The new unions, especially the Nurses’ Professional Association of Queensland and the Teachers’ Professional Association of Queensland, are growing strongly.

With many Labor unions in decline, independent unions have emerged to cover nurses and teachers, police, doctors, bus drivers and miscellaneous workers.

I hear more new unions are coming for journalists and aged-care workers.

(Here I should declare I have previously worked part-time for one of these unions, the NPAQ.)

Bleijie told the House the new unions offered freedom of choice.

He said the QNMU and the QTU pretended they were not supporters of the Labor Party.

Then he tabled Electoral Commission documents showing the QNMU gave $110,000 to the Queensland Council of Unions while the QTU donated $140,000.

“The Queensland Council of Unions then runs third-party political campaigns for people like the Member for Miller (Mark Bailey), who is only here because of his union membership and what he owes the union,” he said.

Minister Mark Bailey was on the receiving end of Jarrod Bleijie’s spray.

The influence of unions over the Labor Government and departments was laid bare by the release of Transport Minister Bailey’s “mangocube” emails.

Former state archivist Mike Summerell revealed the political chatter between Bailey and Electrical Trades Union figures in the emails.

Bailey has several times denied wrongdoing in Parliament.

Bleijie told the House: “He (Bailey) is not in here for competency; he is in here to do the union’s bidding.

“We saw it: he gave cabinet documents to union members and said, ‘How should I vote?’

“They replied, ‘There’s only one way to vote option A.’

“He takes his instructions from the ETU and the CFMEU. They are the ones dictating Labor Party policy.”

He added: “I am not going to sit by and let the Labor Party try to stifle debate about independent unions being established in Queensland.

“Why does the Labor Party not allow workers the choice?

“What does it have to hide from an independent union, which, I might add, charges the worker half the price of the nurses’ union and half the price of the Queensland Teachers’ Union?

“Why not let members save their money with half membership fees? I reckon these independent unions give a better service than the nurses’ union and a better service than the teachers union.’’

NURSES, TEACHERS SLUGGED $22M EXTRA

Are nurses and teachers paying tens of millions too much in union fees? It certainly looks like it.

There are 67,030 members of the Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union and 47,821 members of the Queensland Teachers’ Union, who Jarrod Bleijie says are paying too much for union membership.

He told Parliament the new independent unions offered a better service for half the price.

On my back-of-the-envelope calculation that means many nurses and teachers are paying about $22 million more than then they ought.

I wonder where the money goes.

Now I suspect the State Government is moving to crush independent unions and bolster monopoly unions.

Labor stalwarts Linda Lavarch and John Thompson have completed a review of state industrial relations laws.

Their report includes recommendations I believe will curb the power of the independents.

While they are lawful industrial associations the independents refuse to be registered unions because they don’t want to be part of the Labor union club. Fair enough.

The independents have smashed the Labor union monopoly and the Labor Party doesn’t like it. The proposed new laws seem to me to be an attack on the independents’ freedom of association and right to organise.

It’s also an attack on the workers’ right to choose who they want to represent them.

Lavarch was attorney-general in the Labor government of then premier Peter Beattie and has since held executive positions with the QNMU, so in my opinion she may have a conflict.

Likewise John Thompson, a plumber by trade with a history in the union movement. He was on the executive of the ACTU and secretary of Queensland Council of Unions.

My beef is not so much with Lavarch or Thompson but with Industrial Relations Minister Grace Grace, who assigned them.

Grace is a former director of the Queensland Nurses’ Union and a former secretary of the Queensland Council of Unions and her unions could be protected if laws are amended to redefine what constitutes registered organisations and industrial associations.

In my opinion Grace has a conflict of interest. Without competition, the Labor-aligned unions will be able to charge members whatever they like.

Des Houghton is a media consultant and former editor of The Courier-Mail, Sunday Mail, Sunday Sun and Gold Coast Sun