Union boss Michael Ravbar fined $5000 for crane company blockade

A Queensland union boss has been fined for arranging a blockade against a Brisbane crane company to force its management into signing a contentious union agreement.

The CFMMEU’s Michael Ravbar has been fined for his role in the blockade of a Brisbane crane company. File picture: Claudia Baxter/AAP

A QUEENSLAND union boss has been fined $5000 for arranging a blockade against a Brisbane crane company to force its management into signing a contentious union agreement.

The Federal Court last year found that head of Queensland’s Construction, Forestry, Mining, Maritime and Energy Union Michael Ravbar had breached workplace laws by coercing the crane company.

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In 2012, Ravbar ordered unlawful blockades against Universal Cranes, with CFMMEU organisers waiting outside the business to follow cranes and disrupt their work once they arrived on site.

Justice John Reeves found the union had arranged the blockade in a bid to force the company into signing a contentious union agreement, which included a clause allowing the union to hold two-hour stop work meetings at any time and would mean the company had to pay more money into the union’s redundancy fund.

The court heard the blockades came after the crane company made an enterprise agreement directly with Universal Cranes’ employees on terms that were different to the terms of an enterprise agreement acceptable to the CFMMEU.

Ravbar was today slugged with a $5000 fine for the workplace breaches, the union hit with a total $50,000 fine for the two offences and Andrew Sutherland, now the union’s National Assistant Secretary fined $3500.

The Australian Building and Construction Commissioner told an October Federal Court hearing Ravbar and the union should be hit with maximum penalties for the offending because “the contraventions were objectively serious” and “involved the calculated targeting of a business because it would not comply with the CFMMEU’s demands …”

The ABCC also submitted to contraventions were “deliberate” and that the desired outcome could have been achieved through lawful means.

The maximum penalty Ravbar and Sutherland could have faced were fines of $6600 each while the union faced fines of up to $33,000 for each of its two breaches.