Unionists descend into business-class warfare

Trade union chief Dave Oliver has launched a savage attack on former Labor minister Martin Ferguson.

ACTU Secretary Dave Oliver.

Trade union chief Dave Oliver has launched a savage attack on Martin Ferguson, accusing the former Labor minister of class treachery for pushing to slash the penalty rates of low-paid workers while he flies “around in business class on his parliamentary Gold Pass’’.

Mr Oliver, the ACTU secret­ary, said that, in his opinion, “workers reliant on penalty rates must look small indeed­ from 40,000 feet’’ to Mr Ferguson.

The attack marks an escalation of the bad blood between the unions and Mr Ferguson, who rose from ACTU president to serve in both Kevin Rudd’s and Julia Gillard’s cabinets.

However, Mr Oliver is himself no stranger to work-related perks.

The Australian understands he flies business class on an annual official work-related international flight paid for by the unions. He flies economy on domestic flights.

GRAPHIC: In-flight argument

A week after Mr Ferguson, now the chair of Tourism Accommodation Australia, accused the ACTU of using workers as “polit­ical pawns” and argued that weekend pay rates should reflect modern attitudes to weekends, Mr Oliver said that in his opinion the comments were hypocritical.

“Perhaps Mr Ferguson’s newly found opposition to Sunday penalty rates came from a lightning-bolt moment of clarity,” Mr Oliver told The Australian.

“It is possible his new position came more easily on his healthy parliamentary pension, flying around in business class on his parliamentary Gold Pass and enjoying the healthy new pay packet from his masters from the hotel’s lobby. Workers reliant on penalty rates must look small indeed from 40,000 feet.”

Parliamentary records show Mr Ferguson did not claim Gold Pass flights between January and June last year, the most recent disclosure period. He claimed $3239 between July and December 2014, consisting of five flights between Sydney and ­Melbourne.

Mr Ferguson argued in The Australian last week that unions “need to accept that work conditions and attitudes have changed since the 1950s’’.

“We support workers being remuner­ated extra for working on weekends and public holidays, but the compensation needs to be sensible, otherwise businesses just close or reduce hours,’’ he said.

In a riposte to Mr Ferguson, Mr Oliver said: “I try not to waste time on Martin Ferguson these days … Mr Ferguson’s new-found opposition to Sunday penalty rates, printed in The Australian last week, is one of those times”.

Mr Ferguson avoided a union-led push for his expulsion from the ALP last year after accusations of disloyalty for his support for the NSW Coalition’s plans for electricity privatisation and for the restoration of the Australian Building and Construction Commission. He has also declared that the militant Construction Forest­ry Mining and Energy Union should be “brought to heel”.

The independent Fair Work Commission is deliberating on cuts to weekend and public holiday penalty rates for the retail and hospitality industries after calls by employer groups.

Mr Oliver said that “as recent­ly as mid-last year, Mr Ferguson championed our cleaners are an ‘invisible army’ ”.

“Apparently Martin Ferguson now rarely sees or hears the cries of these cleaners and other workers who voted him into the parliament and gave him the opportunities he has had in his life, which they could never hope for themselves.’’

Mr Ferguson declined to ­comment yesterday.