Unions see penalty rates as high ground for battle

Unions are expected to save their multi-million-dollar war chest for the fight against penalty rate cuts.

Unions are expected to save their multi-million-dollar war chest for the fight against penalty rate cuts rather than raising “an army” to campaign against Coalition plans to adopt the trade union royal commission’s recommendations.

Even as the ACTU belittled the report this week as a “blatant political exercise”, some officials voiced private support for reforms including legislative changes that would end secret payments to ­unions.

In contrast to the ACTU’s promise of the “biggest fight since WorkChoices” against any government support for proposals to align Saturday and Sunday penalty rates, union leaders yesterday told The Australian a similar ­campaign against a revamped Registered Organisations Bill was unlikely.

“You don’t fire up an army over union governance,” one union leader said, adding that “bread and butter issues like weekend penalty rates are far more important to members’.

“ There’s serious issues in (Heydon’s) report and the movement needs to choose its battles.”

Another senior union source said: “No one’s going to come out in the street over union governance aside from self-interested union officials; no one’s going to change their vote over the issue, either Labor or Liberal.”

He added that “I’d like to see some acceptance of some of (the Heydon report)”.

While wary of some of the “very far-reaching stuff”, he said “there’s no justifiable reason why secret commissions should be paid, even if it’s for the right reasons” and added that “some of the things that militant unions do is very problematic”.

Some unionists are privately supportive of moves to crack down on what Mr Heydon described as the “bullies” and “thugs” within trade unions.

While the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union is conducting its own “root and branch” review to improve governance, it will continue its campaign against the reintroduction of the Australian Building and Construction Commission — with the ACTU’s backing.

The ACTU is preparing to lodge a complaint to the inter­national labour organisation in Geneva on the CFMEU’s behalf over the plans to restore the powerful building industry regulator, which the government this week slated for the first week of parliament.

But the CFMEU’s campaign was not otherwise a union-wide issue “because that plays to that community, it’s important to their members”, a union strategist said, adding it was likely to be confined to dealing with “senators and the parliament”.

CFMEU national secretary ­Michael O’Connor has spearheaded the campaign so far, as has been acknowledged by construction division secretary Dave Noonan. In a speech to the construction union’s general conference last year, Mr Noonan dec­lared “we were successful in persuading the Senate to reject the ABCC legislation”. “I particularly want to thank Michael O’Connor for his advocacy with the crossbenchers and our legal officer Tom Roberts for the work he has done,” Mr Noonan said.

Labor’s Brendan O’Connor told morning radio Labor would support reforms where it would not diminish unions’ ability to represent workers.