Biased building industry laws based on flawed investigation

The Federal Government’s draft legislation for the construction industry is an unjustified attack on the rights of workers and unions in the industry, the ACTU said.

ACTU Secretary Greg Combet said that the secret volume of the Cole Royal Commission quoted by the media today confirmed that the inquiry investigated matters which only ”might” have been breaches because Mr Cole was concerned that “the number of findings that would (otherwise) have been open to the Commission would have been very small”.

“On the basis of this flawed approach, Tony Abbott is trying to force building workers into a legal straightjacket. The legislation would allow employees and unions to be sued into bankruptcy for being involved in normal collective bargaining to improve their wages, conditions and safety,” said Mr Combet.

“After spending more than $60 million on a Royal Commission which has produced little, the Government is careering ahead with biased, anti-union legislation for the construction industry.

“Mr Abbott today said that he is considering similar legislation for other industries, but refused to say which ones. If the Government succeeds in removing the rights of employees in the building industry, then who will be next?

“The Federal Government is again siding with employers and big business against the interests of ordinary workers by weakening the ability of unions in the construction industry to properly represent their members,” Mr Combet said.

“Despite Mr Abbott’s claims, there is no crisis in the construction industry. The industry is Australia’s fourth most efficient in terms of labour productivity and is in the top three for productivity growth among OECD nations.

“Despite years of public smears and innuendo, not one union official has been successfully prosecuted on the basis of recommendations from the Cole Royal Commission. The Royal Commission could find only two instances in the last three years of alleged breaches by unions of Industrial Relations Commission orders.”

Mr Combet has instead proposed that problems in the construction industry including safety breaches, tax fraud and compliance issues should be dealt with through an industry round-table of state and federal governments and agencies.