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Fair Work Commissioner Julius Roe hits out at critics over CFA ruling

THE workplace commissioner who backed most of the United Firefighters Union’s claims against the Country Fire Authority has hit out at those questioning his independence.

THE workplace commissioner who backed most of the United Firefighters Union’s claims against the Country Fire Authority has hit out at those questioning his independence.

Fair Work Commissioner Julius Roe, who oversaw the bargaining between the CFA and the UFU, supported the bulk of the union’s claims in a ruling on Wednesday.

He has been accused of being “biased” by Opposition Leader Matthew Guy, who suggested his recommendations contained “a lot of spin” and “could have been written by the UFU”.

He also queried Mr Roe’s links to the union movement and to Labor Party politicians.

Mr Roe told the Herald Sun: “I have taken an oath, like all FWC members, to be impartial. In my 6½ years as a commissioner, I have always implemented the oath.”

He said it would “not be appropriate” to respond to Mr Guy’s comments.

Mr Roe is a former president of the Australian National Manufacturing Workers Union and was once a self-­described Marxist and a Communist Party member.

During the 1980s, he wrote in the Australian Left Review about his transition from “an idealistic anarchist position to a Marxist position”.

Mr Roe wrote that the Communist Party’s independence from the Labor Party was important because it ­“allows us to put our relations with the movements and its ­activists ahead of electoral concerns”.

He backed consultative powers for unions dealing with transport authorities — similar to the veto rights he granted to the UFU.

“The value of reforms which increase the access to information and the involvement of the union rank and file is evident,” Mr Roe wrote.

“It offers unions advanced warning of changes and the ability to develop union and community support for alternatives before it is too late.”

Mr Guy said Mr Roe did not give the CFA “a fair hearing”.

“To give the CFA 10 minutes, volunteers not one minute, and the union five hours is not an independent assessment,” he said.

On Wednesday, acting CFA chairman John Peberdy said: “I’m not sure that we feel our case is being listened to as much as we would have hoped.”

Mr Guy said arbitration between the CFA and the UFU should take place at Fair Work, and if this were to happen, he said Mr Roe “most certainly” should excuse himself from it.

The Herald Sun reported yesterday that, in a sign of tension inside the government over its planned cave-in to the union, a senior source raised questions of “the integrity of the process’’.

tom.minear@news.com.au

@tminear

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Original URL: https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/fair-work-commissioner-julius-roe-hits-out-at-critics-over-cfa-ruling/news-story/5f063f1838d6b6c46fe0133d1d58b879