Lawlessness costs CFMEU members millions in fines

The CFMEU and its state branches and officials have paid $6.95m in court-­ordered penalties since 2002.

 

Victoria, the home of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, is the worst state for unlawful industrial behaviour, with the construction union forced to pay more than $3.2 million in fines for lawlessness on the state’s building sites following prosecution by industry watchdogs.

The Australian revealed yesterday that the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union and its state branches and officials have paid $6.95m in court-­ordered penalties after action by successive building industry watch­dogs since the Howard government’s Building Industry Taskforce in 2002, set up after the Cole royal commission.

Individual officials were fined $1.22m and the CFMEU and its branches have been ordered to pay $5.69m in penalties since 2002 by the BIT and successors the Australian Building and Construction Commission and the Fair Work Building Industry Inspectorate (also known as Fair Work Building and Construction). Penalties directed at union officials are usually paid by the CFMEU, a practice criticised in the Heydon report on the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption.

New data supplied to The Australian by FWBC reveals a national snapshot of court-ordered fines.

Most of penalties paid by the CFMEU — $3.28m — were incurred during industrial unrest in Victoria, three times more than the next worst offending state, Western Australia, where lawlessness has cost it $841,980. Unlawful action in Queensland cost the CFEMU $780,700, in NSW it has cost $379,000, in South Australia $363,500, in the Northern Territory $35,000 and in the ACT $10,000.

Those totals could rise, with the CFMEU before the courts in a record number of prosecutions by FWBC, which is seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties. The CFMEU has said it will defend all further charges.

A spokesman for FWBC pointed out the figures did not include civil claims settled between the union and construction firms and subcontractors — for example, the $9m settlement agreed between the CFMEU and Boral over an alleged boycott of the ­concrete firm in Melbourne in September.

“These penalties are only part of the picture — often a court will also order the CFMEU to pay compensation to contractors who suffer financial loss as a result of unlawful behaviour,” an FWBC spokesman said. “In some cases, the CFMEU and the contractor will reach an out-of-court settlement where the CFMEU uses member funds to compensate contractors for the unlawful behaviour of its ­officials.”

In December, the allegations involving Boral culminated in the arrest of the CFMEU’s most powerful unionist, Victorian branch secretary John Setka, and his deputy Shaun Reardon, who face jail over claims they blackmailed Boral as part of a wider dispute with the anti-union construction firm Grocon.

It is not suggested that Mr Setka and Mr Reardon have been involved in unlawful activity.

Mr Setka and Mr Reardon vowed to defend the charges when they appeared in court in December.

With the number of FWBC prosecutions soaring in recent months, the CFMEU has accused the regulator of being “highly politicised”, working in concert with the ­Coalition to bolster the case for reinstating the more powerful ABCC in place of FWBC.

The union has complained to the Commonwealth Ombudsman over a “pattern of high-­profile media interventions”, including legal action against its national secretary, ­Michael O’Connor and other officials.

The complaint, signed by CFMEU construction division national secretary Dave Noonan, alleged that the case against Mr O’Connor had been “timed to cause maximum damage to the reputation of the CFMEU and its officials and to attempt to influence perceptions of the industry and the need for the re­introduction of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner.”

ACTU secretary Dave Oliver said the peak body’s role was “to support affiliates in their disputes whether initiated by them or an employer’’.