Firefighters union used controversial veto powers to stop sexism reviewers from visiting stations

EXCLUSIVE: THE militant United Firefighters Union used its veto powers under a controversial workplace agreement to stop independent reviewers from visiting fire stations.

Peter Marshall launched a workplace dispute on March 7 this year in a bid to stymie the independent review. Picture: Mark Stewart

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THE militant United Firefighters Union used its veto powers under a controversial workplace agreement to stop independent reviewers looking at sexism and bullying from visiting fire stations.

The Herald Sun can reveal union boss Peter Marshall launched a workplace dispute on March 7 this year in a bid to stymie the independent review by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission.

Peter Marshall plans to stop reviewers looking at sexism and bullying from visiting fire stations. Picture: Rob Leeson

The MFB at that stage had already relented and stopped the station visits by VEOHRC investigators, but told the union it didn’t believe it was required to under their enterprise agreement.

It comes more than 18 months after warnings were first issued about the alarming new veto powers the UFU was seeking in new CFA and MFB enterprise agreements.

On March 16 this year, Mr Marshall wrote to the MFB telling it to quash the review.

“The UFU requires that the MFB cease all co-operation with the VEOHRC Review and join with the UFU in a submission to the government that the review be discontinued and no further use be made of its work so far,” Mr Marshall wrote.

The union then went to the Fair Work Commission to try to stop the review from ever being released.

Female firefighters allege they were forced to strip naked and pose in group photographs with dozens of male recruits as part of a hazing ritual. Picture: Joe Castro

Based on the workplace agreements the CFA and MFB have with the union, Fair Work commissioner Nick Wilson last week told the parties to come together in a “conciliation”, along with Victoria’s Human Rights Commissioner.

Commissioner Wilson told the CFA and MFB “there would need to be modifications of some kind to the form, substance and expected timing of the VEOHRC work”.

Documents lodged with Fair Work reveal the CFA agreed to the meeting, but the MFB did not, leading to the union’s extraordinary Supreme Court challenge this week to try to stop the release of the findings.

“Respectively, the proposed conciliation process and the stated preconditions for its success, would necessarily compromise the independence of VEOHRC,” the MFB wrote.

According to the union’s claim, the MFB failed to consult about the establishment of an acting Deputy Chief Officer to lead the response to the VEOHRC review.

The VEOHRC, which was due to hand down its findings next week, was called in by former Emergency Services Minister Jane Garrett more than a year ago.

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