Union bid to put CSL boss in dock over secret plan

CSL chief executive Paul McKenzie faces legal action after exposure of the company’s plan to cut workers’ pay.

CSL chief executive Paul McKenzie is being targeted by unions.

CSL chief executive Paul McKenzie could personally face legal action from unions over the company’s secret plan to shift workers on to lower pay and conditions and make them redundant if they refused to relocate to its new $800m plant in Melbourne.

The Electrical Trades Union and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union have asked Gordon Legal to investigate making Mr McKenzie a respondent to imminent Federal Court litigation.

Gordon Legal, head of industrial law Marcus Clayton, told The Australian he had been instructed by the unions to examine whether to join Mr McKenzie, and the author of the document outlining the secret plan, in the legal action.

The nine-page internal strategy document, revealed by The Australian this week, discloses how CSL’s vaccines arm, Seqirus, canvassed how to “reset the industrial landscape” by negotiating an enterprise agreement on “reduced terms” with a small group of new employees before applying the deal to workers transferring from the company’s existing Parkville site to the new Banksia facility in Tullamarine.

“Employees who are not relocated or those who do not accept redeployment will face redundancy,” it says.

“Employees who are selected for redeployment may refuse to relocate to the new site on reduced terms, therefore increasing the number of employees made redundant.”

The legal action will allege the strategy represents unlawful adverse action by Seqirus.

Mr Clayton said “there is a strong case that the strategy revealed by the document breaches the Fair Work Act, in particular, the adverse action and workplace rights provisions of the act”.

“It involves cutting wages, imposing inferior conditions and sacking workers. That’s the aim of the game. And why? In order to increase profits. It really is disgraceful,” he said

ETU Victorian secretary Troy Gray said on Wednesday the legal action was about “exposing corporate bastardry at the highest level”.

“We have asked Gordon Legal to investigate making the CEO and the author personally respondent so we can shine a light on their lack of corporate responsibility,” he said.

“We’re doing that to get to … the truth of it. If we make them personally respondents, they will 100 per cent have to be in the witness box.”

“There is no ducking and weaving. The people responsible for the decision making, and overseeing it will be in the witness box and CSL’s corporate reputation will be under scrutiny and under the spotlight.”

Mr Gray said the court action was not just about seeking a financial penalty against CSL “because with a company of that size … you couldn’t get a fine big enough to penalise it”.

“This is about exposing the truth about how CSL operates, its corporate reputation and exposing it. They are not a good corporate citizen,” he said.

CSL declined to comment on Wednesday. It said on Monday that “the work-in-progress document was produced in 2020, outlining a range of options for discussion as part of a potential enterprise agreement for a new facility to be opened in 2026”.

“The document was not endorsed by the leadership team, although some options have since progressed,” it said.