The Guardian 28 June, 2006
DRACONIAN POWERS:
The Australian Building
and Construction Commission
Anna Pha
Imagine: you are a worker and receive a notice to attend a secret meeting from a government authority. Attendance is compulsory — fail to attend and you could be sent to jail for six months. At the meeting you are asked to give details of which workers and union officials attended a union meeting that you were at, what each person said and how they voted. You are asked to inform on your workmates and union officials. Refusal to answer questions is punishable by fines that can risk workers’ and their families’ assets, and imprisonment for up to six months.
This is not some hypothetical situation.
For 12 months now, building and construction industry workers have been watched by a special political police force that prowls major construction sites and has police powers to summon workers to secret interrogation sessions. This is happening right now.
These workers do not have the basic right to remain silent when questioned by this clandestine organisation — the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC). The ABCC is a special taskforce equipped with the most draconian powers that deny innocent workers basic rights afforded to those accused of a crime.
They are not being questioned about crimes, but about industrial relations affairs.
Building workers are not even guaranteed legal representation of their own choice. So much for the Australian Constitution which the Howard Government is tearing up with its attacks on trade unions and other democratic rights.
These are just a few of the features of the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act which the Howard Government introduced 12 months ago. It is a special Act for the industry that applies alongside the new WorkChoices laws. It could become the model to be forced on all workers in a future round of Howard Government "reforms". So there is a need for all unions to unite in the struggle against these draconian laws which are the result of the findings of the Cole Royal Commission.
So far eight workers have been summonsed to appear in Victoria, NSW and Western Australia before the ABCC.
Already one worker has been denied the right to be represented by his own lawyer on the grounds that that lawyer had already represented someone else! The CFMEU has taken this to court and the union is waiting for the judge’s decision from a hearing in Perth last Monday.
Building and construction workers and unions are also being subjected to the same WorkChoices legislation that confronts the majority of workers.
Workers around Australia are beginning to feel the impact of the new laws which came into force in March 2006.
The government’s own Office of Employment Advocate has admitted to a Senate Inquiry that not a single one of the thousands of AWAs that it looked at contained all six of Howard’s "Protected by Law" award conditions. Not one!
And that is not all:
64 percent of AWAs removed leave loadings
63 percent did away with penalty rates
52 percent removed shift work loadings
6 percent excluded all "protected award conditions"
New "contractor" Bill
Before Parliament closed for its winter break, the government began pushing new laws for contractors. These are so vicious and undemocratic, and so open for abuse, that there appears to be dissent within government ranks.
The legislation has the intent of allowing employers to redefine employment relationships with workers to that they are hired as "contractors" not employees.
Once a worker is signed up as a contractor he or she has no protections; no rights under industrial relations law whatsoever. Even the government’s paltry minimum wage or other legislated minimum conditions will NOT apply.
As contractors, workers would lose ALL rights to any entitlements. No minimum conditions, no award provisions, no governance of their wages and conditions!!
Workers would be paid whatever the boss liked, and then would have to provide their own workers’ compensation and other insurance, superannuation, sick pay, holiday income, etc.
Workers hired as "contractors" would have NO rights under industrial relations law. They would be hired under commercial law on a contract in the same way as BHP would have a legally binding contract with Patrick Corporation. The difference here is that an individual worker does not have the bargaining power of a big corporation or even a small one!
This legislation hasn’t become law but the CFMEU has already received several complaints from members who have been subjected to this way of employment by their unscrupulous bosses who have stripped them off their employee entitlements such as superannuation and long service leave.
The contractor legislation is the first of many more "reforms" to come to the industrial relations system. It poses new dangers and requires urgent action by all trade unions and workers on the streets.