Union taking money from fund meant for workers

Maritime Union of Australia, which is part of the militant CFMMEU and shut down Melbourne port operations this month, is taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from a fund meant for workers’ welfare.

A union which shut down Melbourne port operations this month is taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from a fund meant for workers’ welfare.

The Maritime Union of Australia, which is part of the militant CFMMEU, has taken at least $232,589 out of a fund called Protect in recent years.

Under a workplace agreement with Australia’s biggest stevedore DP World, the company is forced to pay 2 per cent of workers’ wages into the fund.

The revelations come as the Morrison Government is trying to pass new laws which would force unions and funds to be transparent about what they were doing with workers’ wages.

Labor accused the government of having a “blind hatred of unions”, saying the funds were needed to support workers.

The funds are meant to provide welfare services to workers including training, counselling support and suicide prevention.

Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter said the Maritime Union needed to say how much money it was taking out of Protect to line its coffers.

“The obvious question is why do so many unions want employers to send money to Protect?” he said.

“And now these AEC declarations clearly show the flow of funds from Protect to the MUA. This is the sort of secret financial structure to achieve a benefit to unions and not workers that we see far too often from the most extreme militant union in Australia.”

The funds are meant to provide welfare services to workers including training, counselling support and suicide prevention.

There were two separate donations of $200,000 in 2016-17 and $32,589 in 2017-18, according to Australian Electoral Commission disclosures.

The Maritime Union of Australia did not say how much money it was taking out of Protect every year. Any donations under $13,800 would not have had to be declared.

MORE:

STRIKE LOOMS AS RAIL UNION BACKS ACTION

MASSIVE BILL FOR TUNNEL’S LOLLIPOP WORKERS

The union this month held strikes in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Sydney and Perth over a new workplace agreement.

The company wants to give workers a 2 per cent pay rise instead of contributing to Protect. It emerged last week the Electrical Trades Union was taking millions of dollars in workers’ wages from the same fund.

Opposition industrial relations spokesman Tony Burke said the funds were already regulated under corporations law and the government only wanted to change the rules for those funds linked to unions.

[e-mail]