ETU wins court case against LNP

The Queensland branch of the ETU has had a court victory against the state Liberal National Party government.

On 8 July the Magistrates Court found the ETU not guilty of breaching the state government’s new union-busting Transparency and Accountability of Industrial Organisations amendments to the Industrial Relations Act.

The amendments require unions to publicise details of officials’ salaries on a public website. The ETUQ complied with the amendments and publicised the details on the website opposethesefascistlaws.com, alongside the salary details of the LNP’s cabinet. The LNP argued that the website was not the official website of the ETUQ, but the magistrate dismissed the case because the act did not mention anything about official websites.

Attorney general Jarrod Bleijie said that the government would “decide at a later date whether there are grounds for an appeal”.

In another victory, the LNP government reversed its decision to make unions ballot their membership every time they spend more than $10,000 on anything deemed a political campaign. Bleijie stated that he would await the outcome of the royal commission into trade unions before proposing more changes.

The LNP in Queensland is not feeling confident to push through anti-union laws. Poll after poll shows low support for the government.

Unions in Queensland may have dodged the worst of the law changes and been lucky that the stupidity of the LNP made it easy to get around the new laws. But if the bosses really take on the unions in the future, legal technicalities and wrangling in the courts will be no protection.

The only way to protect workers and our unions will be to rebuild a strong and militant rank and file that can take industrial action against the attacks of the bosses.