The construction union and a peak business group have clashed over whether a tougher building industry regulator would infringe workers’ rights or was necessary to crackdown on unlawful conduct at an industrial relations election curtain-raiser.
The Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union national construction secretary, Dave Noonan, said Malcolm Turnbull had recalled parliament in the run-up to a possible 2 July double dissolution election on “a lie” that the Australian Building and Construction Commission was necessary to deal with endemic criminality and corruption in the construction sector.
Noonan said the ABCC was not a criminal law enforcement agency but rather enforced industrial laws through civil penalties.
The Australian Industry Group’s chief executive, Innes Willox, and Noonan debated the merits of the ABCC on Wednesday at the National Press Club. Willox said the government was right to consider the ABCC bill “a major priority”.
He said it contained powerful protections against unlawful behaviour including: the ability to compel people to give evidence; higher penalties for unlawful conduct; and a building code that would prevent employers who had capitulated to “union coercion” from receiving government work.
Noonan took aim at the economic case for the ABCC, saying an Econtech report on the productivity benefits of the ABCC had been “comprehensively debunked” and its output was “valueless”.
The construction union boss said the ABCC in its last iteration had seen a “serious escalation in the number of fatalities in the building industry”.
He said the Fair Work Building Construction regulator was now suing more than 500 individual workers for unprotected industrial action for up to $10,000 – penalties that could triple under the ABCC bill.
Noonan said some industrial laws had been condemned by the International Labour Organisation up to eight times for breaching freedom of association and collective bargaining conventions ratified by Australia. Its compulsory examination powers also stripped away the right against self-incrimination, he said.
Willox argued the construction industry needed a separate regulator because it was “a different beast” characterised by “bullying, thuggery and standover tactics”. He cited a pattern of industrial law breaches by the CFMEU, which has 100 officials and delegates before the courts who are accused of more than 1,000 industrial law breaches.
Noonan said “no one likes paying members money out in fines, and the union tries to work with the law”.
He said the trade union royal commission had not recommended passage of the ABCC. The royal commission did, however, call for a separate building and industry regulator “with compulsory investigatory and information-gathering powers equivalent to those possessed by other civil regulators”, and the ABCC bill powers “appear appropriate in this regard”.
In addition to restoration of the ABCC, Willox issued an election wishlist from the Productivity Commission workplace relations review. It included increasing flexibility on workers’ pay after a transfer of business; restricting union right of entry to workplaces and lunchrooms; and prohibiting content in industrial agreements that reduced management flexibility.
He said the changes would “not completely upend the apple cart” but restore balance to the industrial relations system.
“We would hope the government and opposition would both be able to take comprehensive [workplace relations] packages to and election then find some common ground ... this is the debate we had to have now, but we don’t want to be having it years into the future.”
Noonan said AiG’s proposed reforms would allow companies to lower workers pay after a restructure or takeover; make it harder for a worker to see a union official on a worksite; and reduce job security protections in agreements which prevent work being allocated to contractors.
