Miners vote to split from militant CFMEU

CFMEU’s mining and energy division to split from union, slamming its ‘macho posturing and chest beating’.

Former CFMEU National Secretary Michael O'Connor leaving Federal Court in Melbourne in 2020. Picture: David Geraghty

The CFMEU’s mining and energy division has resolved to split from the militant union, declaring it has been overtaken by “macho posturing and chest beating” and never been less respected or more isolated within the union movement and the community.

Becoming the first union division to capitalise on the Coalition’s new union demerger laws, about 300 delegates representing workers at mines, power stations and coal ports voted unanimously to apply to the Fair Work Commission to withdraw from the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union.

In a blistering attack on the rival construction and maritime divisions, mining delegates said “the ruthless use of raw numbers against the smaller divisions; the disrespect and disregard shown to the views of mining and energy workers; and the public undermining of our former national secretary (Michael O’Connor) to settle a personal score, is simply intolerable”.

Tony Maher

Declaring “no interest in the petty political fights happening in distant capital cities”, they said there was “nothing of substance that the broader amalgamated union can offer us”.

“Once it could offer serious political influence and a campaigning capacity that was used to benefit the position of all Australian workers, including mining and energy workers,” they said. “Now there is just macho posturing and chest beating. It is a sad observation, but the amalgamated union has never been less respected. It has never been more isolated within the union movement and broader community.”

The mining and energy division will now apply to the commission for a ballot of members to vote on splitting from the union. It could be followed by the manufacturing division, whose leaders, including Mr O’Connor, have also fallen out with construction and maritime officials.

Addressing delegates on Monday, mining and energy division general president Tony Maher said “there is no longer any place for us in the CFMEU”.

“It is not the union we signed up for,” he said. “Unions can’t let personal vendettas decide outcomes. Mining and energy workers expect to be represented in their own interests, not at the whim of others. There is now an opportunity to break away as our own union. A union of mining and energy workers.”

Delegates instructed the division’s central council to take all necessary steps to secure existing membership, assets, coverage and legal benefits.

Mr Maher quit as the union’s national president in November, accusing the construction division of bullying, and declaring the union “impossibly divided and dysfunctional, with no repair in sight”. “We have many challenges ahead but we should be in control of the decisions that affect us,” he said on Monday. “We should not have to deal with ¬others who show us no respect and who want to take over our division.”

Mr O’Connor resigned as national secretary in November following a campaign by construction and maritime division officials, including Victorian secretary John Setka, to force him out. Supporters of Mr O’Connor said earlier no-confidence motions against him were “revenge” by Mr Setka, who was angry that Mr O’Connor did not publicly support him after Mr Setka was charged with harassing his wife, and the Labor Party moved to expel him.

Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter said the mining division “clearly” had strong views about the impact the construction division was having on its members. “It is a welcome development that it is able to make use of the new provisions to begin the process to demerge,” he said.

The split came as the Fair Work Ombudsman launched legal action against the CFMEU and five of its officials over the alleged expletive-laden abuse of employees and contractors during an industrial dispute at the Oaky North underground coal mine in Queensland.

CFMEU members were locked out of the mine in 2017 after taking legal industrial action and the FWO alleges the abuse was directed at the employees and contractors who continued to work at the mine.

Court documents filed by the FWO allege the abuse included workers being told to ‘‘crash your car into a tree on the way home”; and workers variously called a “f..king maggot, a “f..king” grub”, a “f..king low-life scumbag”, “scab” and “slimy rat”.

The documents allege a CFMEU member verbally abused a worker as he passed through the protests, yelling “I’ll rip your f..king head straight off, c...”; “you are a f..king scumbag. I’ll f..king rip your head off and shit in the f..king hole”; and “you f..king arsehole. I’ll f..king kill you, you c..., you’re f..king dead”.

The five CFMEU officials facing court include Queensland’s mining and energy district president Stephen Smyth, state mining vice-president Chris Brodsky and Jade Ingham, assistant secretary of the union’s Queensland construction division.

The FWO alleges the CFMEU and each of the five officials contravened the Fair Work Act by engaging in, encouraging, inciting, directing or authorising abusive conduct that amounted to adverse action and coercion during an industrial dispute at the mine.