Building unions fight Code:
Building unions to prosecute Employment Advocate

by Rohan Gowland

Victorian building unions are to prosecute the Federal Employment Advocate 
for his "interference" in Melbourne's Federation Square project.

John Sutton, National Secretary of the Construction Division of the 
Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), told The 
Guardian that building unions are pursuing prosecution of the 
Employment Advocate for allegedly attempting to coerce, intimidate and 
threaten employers involved in the project into abandoning the enterprise 
agreement with unions.

Six unions on the project and employer Multiplex had come to agreement and 
were in the process of getting the agreement certified when the Federal 
Government's Employment Advocate, Jonathan Hamberger, allegedly intervened 
to stop it from proceeding.

The Government was of the opinion that the agreement gave workers too much 
at a time when the Government is trying to wind back workers' rights. The 
Government claimed that the agreement breached its tough new Code of 
Practice — which has only recently been hatched and is designed to 
encourage building industry employers to take up the Government's anti-
union agenda.

The Code outlaws fully unionised sites (closed shops) and allows employers 
to claim that they have been coerced into workplace agreements, and so opt 
out of them.

In this case, it seems the Code was being used to coerce employers 
out of a workplace agreement — and it was the Federal Government's 
building industry trouble-shooter who was doing the coercing.

Unions say that the Employment Advocate broke his Government's own 
industrial relations laws, under section 170NC of the Workplace Relations 
Act, which relates to third parties coercing others into changing 
agreements.

It has been reported that the Employment Advocate threatened the Federation 
Square employers that unless they renounced their agreement with the union, 
then they would not get the promised $50 million in Federal Government 
funding for the project.

When Mr Hamberger first involved himself in the matter, unions took out a 
Federal Court injunction against him to stop him breaking the law.

The Court agreed to discharge this injunction so long as Mr Hamberger 
promised not to take any actions that would break the law in respect to 
coercion of parties involved in enterprise bargaining.

In a statement sent to The Guardian, Mr Hamberger said, "The 
allegations by the CFMEU are without foundation" and that his lawyers would 
fight "vigorously" in court.

While Mr Hamberger is "vigorously" preparing for his big day in court, the 
Federation Square enterprise agreement is going ahead.