The fight for our unions is on
He’s been a union buster for more than a decade, but as head of Fair Work Building and Construction (FWBC) Nigel Hadgkiss is breaking new ground. Under his direction, FWBC has initiated legal action to seize and sell the assets of individual union members who it claims haven’t paid fines associated with a 2008 strike in the Pilbara.
Dozens of Western Australian construction workers have been served with documents allowing for the confiscation of their homes and cars. Others without assets will be hauled before the Federal Court to be interrogated about their financial position. It’s a move unprecedented in Australian history and the surest sign yet that the fight for our unions is on – not in the making or on the horizon; it’s on.
Since being installed as head of the federal regulator in October, Hadgkiss has publically assured building industry bosses that he can move quickly against the unions. The bill to re-instate the Howard-era Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) remains locked in the senate. But Hadgkiss boasted to a recent gathering of the Master Builders in Queensland: “I do not intend to wait for the bill to pass”.
He’s getting on with union bashing basics. Investigations, prosecutions and media releases – lots of them. After all as the saying (almost) goes: if a worker is punished, and no one is there to write a press release about it, did it intimidate anyone?
While Victoria’s workplace safety authority has refused to publicise even one of a number of successful prosecutions against employers this financial year, the offices of FWBC are currently advertising for more staff to join its over-active media department. No doubt these new soldiers will be getting the word out about vital news such as that contained in FWBC’s 9 March farcical media release: “CFMEU official facing court after allegedly claiming to be Steve Irwin”.
In recent weeks, Hadgkiss has also announced the creation of a “cold case unit”. This crack team of lawyers and investigators, it seems, will be carefully tracing their steps back to FWBC’s compactus shelving and unravelling the mystery surrounding those handful of cases that were closed without a union being successfully prosecuted. The exercise is less about unsolved cases and more about good old fashioned double jeopardy – legalese for having another crack.
And if, after all this, there is any residual confusion about what FWBC is all about, Hadgkiss has clarified exactly what the regulator’s “core business” is. No longer on that list is “wages and entitlement work” which has quietly been palmed off to the far more conciliatory and over-worked Fair Work Ombusdman. The “tough cop on the beat” is openly now only pursuing cases involving industrial action, right of entry disputes and general “union thuggery” – which is code for “refusing to submit to the bosses’ attempts to cripple the workforce”.
But while Hadgkiss is certainly challenging for the captain’s armband on team Masters and Servants, this fight is much more than one man’s obsession. A beefed up federal regulator is only one part of the agenda being pushed by the ruling class and its representatives in government.
A former high court justice, gangs of barristers, federal police and a dedicated team of thirty detectives, lawyers and accountants will be wielding the pitchforks in Abbott’s royal commission into “trade union governance and corruption”, which is now underway. The commission’s outcome is easy to predict – law changes and greater state intervention in the trade union movement. It may recommend de-registration of the construction union.
But we shouldn’t sit back and wait to see exactly what it is they dish out. For our side, the time to plant our feet and start pushing back is now.
[Follow Steph on Twitter @steph__price]
