Three unions have been fined a total of $101,500 by the federal court over unlawful industrial action at a construction project at the Australian Paper mill in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley.
The Australian Building and Construction Commission took action against the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union, Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union, the Australian Workers’ Union and three officials after work stopped for three days at the mill’s de-inking project in March 2014.
The stoppages at the mill continued on the third day, despite orders from the Fair Work Commission that industrial action stop.
Union officials maintained the stoppages were safety related and thus did not amount to unlawful industrial action, but the court ruled against the claim.
In the judgment, Justice Christopher Jessup singled out the CFMEU for what he described as its “appalling” prior record of noncompliance with industrial laws.
Jessup said the “normalisation of contraventions” by the CFMEU “has been the subject of comment by judges on so many previous occasions that any further observation on my part here would amount to little more than stating the obvious”.
“If there is any union in the industrial universe which should be acutely aware of the importance of understanding the boundaries of lawful conduct in the prosecution of disputes, it is this one. Self-evidently, it does not care to do so.”
The CFMEU was penalised $45,000, the AMWU $25,000 and the AWU $20,000.
Officials Toby Thornton (CFMEU), Steve Dodd (AMWU) and Jeff Sharp (AWU) were penalised a total of $11,500.
