Vulnerable women ‘at mercy of union thugs’

Defeat of the government’s Ensuring Integrity bill imposing tougher standards on unions is a ‘defeat for all women’.

Australian Chamber of Commerce workplace relations associate director Tamsin Lawrence at a construction site in Canberra. Picture: Kym Smith

Australia’s peak small business lobby has warned the defeat of the government’s Ensuring Integrity bill imposing tougher standards on unions is a “defeat for all women who remain vulnerable and without protection” on worksites.

Associate director for workplace relations at the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Tamsin Lawrence, has accused the Senate of failing to stand up for women after key crossbenchers Jacqui Lambie and Pauline Hanson sided with Labor and the Greens to vote down the government’s bill. She said the bill would have granted courts the powers to tackle the “misogynistic, corrupt and thuggish behaviour that lurks in the dark corners of the union movement”.

READ MORE: Lambie, Hanson let down women

Writing in The Australian today, Ms Lawrence says the number of working women has almost tripled to six million in four decades but noted the trend was not replicated in the construction sector. “The number of working women in construction has fallen consistently from 13 per cent 30 years ago to 11 per cent today, despite increases in other typically male-dominated industries such as mining, transport and utilities over the same period,” she says.

“Is it because we are sending women in construction, engineering and trades a message that, if a union official engages in illegal, thuggish behaviour, all they will get is a slap on the wrist and a fine paid by the union?”

Ms Lawrence argues the bill would have ensured that union officials were not able to distribute the numbers and home addresses for female worksite inspectors or abuse them by using names like “slut” and “dog”.

“What is the parliament’s justification to a pregnant woman who was left cowering, fearing for the survival of her unborn child when 30 union thugs violently stormed her office?” Ms Lawrence says. “Or to the woman who was threatened with gang rape by union officials?

“As a society we should be utterly ashamed, not only because in 2019 this kind of behaviour is still occurring, but because our laws allow those engaging in such behaviour to continue to lead the organisations and workers they claim to represent.”

Ms Lawrence noted that, in September, Senator Lambie took part in a parliamentary inquiry into the government’s Ensuring Integrity bill which was rejected by the upper house last week in a surprise defeat for the government.