Unions royal commission: Mushroom workers in dark on $24k to AWU

A deal struck by Bill Shorten’s AWU and Chiquita Mushrooms to sack workers was “unfair”, former workers have said.

Melbourne based Chiquita mushroom pickers..L to R.. Josephine Hodgson, Marjorie Hodgson, Marion Rogers and Sharon Dellevergini leave the Royal Commission after giving evidence. These workers are the subject of claims that their wages were dramatically reduced whilst money was funelled into the AWU which Bill Shorten headed at the time of the potentially corrupt deal.

A deal struck by Bill Shorten’s AWU and Chiquita Mushrooms to sack workers and replace them with union-friendly labour hire was “unfair”, former workers have told the trade union royal commission as they testified they knew nothing of $24,000 in payments from the company to the union during negotiations over the agreement.

Sharon Dellevergini, Marion Rogers, Josephine Hodgson and her sister-in-law Marjorie Hodgson, who were members of the Australian Workers Union employed at Chiquita mushroom farms when Mr Shorten was Victorian secretary, travelled from Melbourne to Sydney to give evidence at the inquiry yesterday.

Counsel assisting the commission Catherine Gleeson quizzed the women about the AWU-led vote on the 2004 enterprise bargaining agreement which enshrined the plan to install union-friendly labour hire firm One Force at the site.

Josephine Hodgson, 67, who worked for Chiquita for 16 years before she was made redundant in 2004, told the royal commission “it was the most unfair vote I have ever seen”.

“It was a show of hands,” she said. “(But) there wasn’t hands going anywhere. They weren’t voting for it and they weren’t ­really voting — there was a few that put their hand up but very, very few.”

Ms Hodgson was called to the commission after The Australian revealed workers brought unfair dismissal claims against Chiquita, and later claimed they were “sold out” by the AWU.

The commission has previously heard that Chiquita paid the AWU $4000 a month for six months during 2003 and 2004.

The union and Mr Shorten have claimed the payments were for “paid education leave”.

However, former Chiquita HR manager Joe Agostino told the commission last year the payments were compensation for lost union dues, after he started to use independent contractors in an ­effort to reduce Work Cover premiums.

The inquiry has heard AWU organiser Frank Leo, who is now branch assistant secretary, concocted the deal with Mr Agostino to install 300 labour hire workers with Chiquita.

At the centre of the plan, which involved some forced redundancies, was the transference of dozens of permanent staff — and crucially hundreds of non-unionised independent contractors already working at the site - to a labour hire company One Force. It was the AWU’s Mr Leo who introduced Chiquita to One Force.

Ms Gleeson asked Ms Rogers: “And do you remember what the workers were saying to the AWU representatives about this?”

Ms Rogers replied: “They weren’t very happy about it because they would lose their fulltime jobs.”

Yesterday, Ms Dellevergini, who had worked for Chiquita for 13 years when she was sacked, told the commission: “There wasn’t really any other choice. I thought it was illegal to make us redundant when they were just going to put someone in that position, but he seemed to think that this is what they had to do.”