Sparkies union plans Greens donation as ACTU legend issues unity plea

The Electrical Trades Union plans to donate to the Greens in protest at Labor’s takeover of the CFMEU as former Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Bill Kelty urges his successors to resolve their differences with the wealthy rebel divisions.

Thursday’s decision by the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union to leave the ACTU marked a major split in the union movement, damaging the most powerful organisation backing Labor ahead of an election that polls predict will be tight.

Former ACTU secretary Bill Kelty has issued a plea for unity in the labour movement.Credit: Ben Rushton

Figures from the electoral commission and union regulator show the departure, combined with the suspension of the CFMEU, means the ACTU will represent the interests of about 200,000 fewer workers and receive about $1 million less a year.

The Electrical Trades Union’s move to shift at least a portion of its donations to the Greens is a major blow to Labor because it is one of the wealthiest unions, pulling in more than $50 million across its branches on the eastern seaboard last year and donating more than $1 million via its national office alone in the 2022 election year.

Kelty, who led the ACTU for almost two decades until 2000 and dealt with a transport union revolt in the 1990s, said the peak body and tearaway unions have to work out their differences.

“I think unity is one of the most important things … you’ve got to sit down and talk with them to take them back,” Kelty told this masthead. “Don’t allow the fragmentation, principle number one.”

“Principle number two is don’t allow corruption, violence, drugs or kickbacks,” he said.

“For the most part the union is not about those things, so it’s a matter of drawing the line and having all the union members not in favour of drug and bikies and corruption and kickbacks.”

This masthead’s Building Bad series of stories, reported with The Australian Financial Review and 60 Minutes, revealed bikies and organised crime had infiltrated the union along with allegations of corruption.

Union sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, confirmed the Electrical Trade Union will be donating to the Greens because its members believe the CFMEU takeover has weakened crucial union safety and pay protections on worksites.

The Greens opposed the government’s intervention in the CFMEU last month, saying it was undemocratic and lacked due process. Labor claimed the minor party was seeking union donors.

Bandt repeatedly argued that was not his motivation, as it had been about a decade since the Greens received funds from the CFMEU.

“This is about a matter of principle, about what laws should apply across workplaces to ensure that everyone has a safe workplace,” he said on August 12.

In 2010, the ETU Victorian branch donated $125,000 to Bandt’s campaign when he was first running for the seat of Melbourne on top of $200,000 donated for the Greens Senate campaign. It followed up with a $200,000 donation to the party in 2017-18 but the national union remained in Labor’s financial fold.

Australian Council of Trade Unions president Michele O’Neil said she was surprised by the breakaway from her organisation, but refused to say if it would weaken it.

“It’s always in the interest of workers to come together collectively within unions, and then to have unions act together improve pay and conditions and rights and safety for workers and that’s what we do,” she said.

The ACTU remains open to accepting the CEPU back if it decides to rejoin, O’Neil said. She predicted no other union would leave.

Victorian divisions of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the Rail, Tram and Bus Union are supporting the CFMEU’s legal challenge against the government takeover, although the manufacturing union’s national office has said it will not split from the ACTU.

The legal challenge will next be heard in November or December and state governments could intervene, lawyers told a High Court hearing in Brisbane on Friday.

Victorian manufacturing union assistant secretary Tony Piccolo spoke at a rally on Saturday backing the scandal-plagued union.

“We’ve had to put up with grubby bosses, rotten media and corrupt governments, we’re here today to say hands off the working class, hands off the CFMEU, hands off the union movement and we’re unapologetic for fighting,” Piccolo said in a speech posted to Instagram.

Union sources who spoke anonymously to preserve relationships said many union leaders were privately furious at the tearaways, especially the electricians’ union, regarding their actions as counterproductive.

Separately on Friday, the superannuation regulator launched a court case seeking to disqualify CFMEU manufacturing boss Michael O’Connor from his co-chairmanship of timber industry fund First Super. It alleged O’Connor had approved a CFMEU employee to do contract work for the fund on full-time pay but kept the staffer on union duties. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority is seeking civil penalties in the Federal Court.

A spokeswoman for First Super said O’Connor had voluntarily stepped down from his roles at the fund until the court case is resolved and otherwise declined to comment.

O’Connor, the Greens and the ETU did not respond to requests for comment.

With William Davis

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.