Labour-hire firm OneForce paid AWU while on brink of collapse

A company involved in a deal with the AWU to replace workers with union members paid the AWU while on the brink of collapse.

Oneforce was the exclusive labour-hire provider in a 2004 enterprise bargaining agreement between Chiquita Mushrooms and the AWU

A company involved in a deal ­between the Australian Workers Union and Chiquita Mushrooms to replace workers with union members continued to pay the AWU even as it was on the brink of liquidation.

As revealed in The Weekend Australian, the AWU under Bill Shorten arranged to replace the workforce of Chiquita Mushrooms, then majority owned by the Costa Group, with “union-friendly” labour hire from Oneforce Group Australia. The 2004 deal had the effect of increasing the union’s membership, earning it at least $150,000 in fees.

Oneforce went into liquidation in 2013, leaving its directors bankrupt and still owing casual workers $500,000 in unpaid superannuation. In the year before it collapsed, the company made a series of payments to the union totalling $82,142.50.

It described the payments as “union fees” in its accounts, copies of which are before the royal commission into trade unions.

The credit side of the ledger reflects no income from union dues.

The final two transfers to the AWU from Oneforce came on May 17 and June 26, 2013, shortly after Oneforce agreed to a buyout by Ashley Services subsidiary Action­Force.

The payments raise further questions about the nature of the relationship between the union and Oneforce, which had been named as the exclusive labour-hire provider in a 2004 enterprise bargaining agreement between Chiquita and the AWU.

Oneforce was chosen despite having no other clients. Ashley Services chief executive Ross Shrimpton said he bought Oneforce in 2013 based on the value of its labour force.

“Oneforce had been supplying labour for quite a while, and Chiquita was a name I remember in relation to Oneforce and mushroom labour in Melbourne,” he said. Mr Shrimpton has had no involve­ment with Oneforce direc­t­ors since he bought the business and had “absolutely no idea” about payments the company was making to the AWU when he was in negotiations to buy it, he said.

Mr Shorten, who was signatory to other enterprise agreements with Chiquita in 2001, 2003 and 2004, has declined through his office to say if he approved of the plan to use Oneforce.

For more than a decade after it struck the deal with Chiquita, One­force signed up union members for the AWU and also expanded into Western Australia.

Between 2003 and 2009, it collected almost $200,000 in payments from workers for “union dues”, after it began to supply labou­r hire to Chiquita, records before the royal commission show.

During the same period, it paid unions­ just $51,211.50. Of this, $42,753 went to the AWU while Oneforce paid $8458.50 to the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union. When Oneforce collapsed, it left $560,000 in unpaid super owing to its casual workforce and more than $1 million in other debts. The tax office also claimed a $1.4m debt.