Criminalisation of industrial action a threat for all, says Labor

Labor and the ACTU have launched a strenuous defence against criminalisation of industrial action.

ACTU president Ged Kearney. Picture: Kym Smith

Labor and the ACTU have ­launched a strenuous defence against “19th-century” criminalisation of industrial action, warning that employers, too, could fall foul of laws allegedly broken by ­militant Victorian construction union officials John Setka and Shaun Reardon.

Foreshadowing the defence of Mr Setka and Mr Reardon to blackmail charges laid at the weekend, Labor employment spokesman Brendan O’Connor said it was “a very dangerous trend when we start moving ­industrial relations into the ­criminal jurisdiction, I think we have to be very mindful of that”.

“It would lead to some major problems in our relationships ­between employers, employees and unions over time,” Mr O’Connor said.

Qantas could potentially be accused of blackmail during ­industrial disputes, he said.

“Qantas locked out its entire workforce on the basis of settling a dispute that was occurring … these two areas of law need to be kept apart where possible because you do not want to be moving such conduct into that criminal realm unnecessarily.”

Mr O’Connor, whose brother Michael is national secretary of the CFMEU, said he couldn’t comment on the specifics of the case against the pair, who face jail time for allegedly threatening Boral for supplying concrete during an industrial war with construction giant Grocon.

“I’ll just make this point independent of those charges and say it is a worrying trend if we were to start charging either union officials or employers with criminal offences for industrial disputation,” Mr O’Connor told Sky’s AM Agenda program.

ACTU president Ged Kearney said the charges against Mr Setka and Mr Reardon were reminiscent of the 19th-century ­criminalisation of industrial behaviour. “The ACTU is deeply concerned about the charge of blackmail entering the industrial landscape,” Ms Kearney said.

She added that the arrests were “a threat to all workers in Australia and their democratic right to engage in industrial action”.

Labor’s arguments go to the heart of a potential challenge for the prosecution, which to secure a conviction under Victoria’s criminal laws must prove that the ­alleged demands of Boral to stop supplying concrete to Grocon were not only menacing, but also “unwarranted”.

The CFMEU yesterday launched a social media campaign declaring “union ­organising is not a crime” — a ­slogan also used in defence of John Lomax, an organiser for the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union in Canberra who was this year also charged with blackmail.

The campaign was ultimately successful and the Director of Public Prosecutions dropped the case, declining to offer evidence in the matter.