On 7.30 last night, new Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus caused a predictable stir when she refused to distance herself from the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union over the numerous legal proceedings against it, saying: “I believe in the rule of law, when the law is fair and the law is right, but when it’s unjust, I don’t think there’s a problem with breaking it.”
It has been taken as a free kick for many on the right, with Cory Bernardi calling the remarks “just an extension of the lawlessness of the CFMEU and others who think that somehow mainstream society and the rules we govern ourselves by shouldn’t apply to them” on Sky, LNP frontbencher James McGrath calling the statement “a disgrace” and Michaelia Cash calling on Bill Shorten to “condemn and repudiate the remarks”. Shorten duly distanced himself from McManus, saying people should seek to change unjust laws, rather than break them.
The remarks came in the context of work safety, with McManus saying it was totally wrong that unions could be fined more for “illegal” strikes than employers who oversaw workplaces where employees had been killed. Crikey has previously reported on the fact it is illegal to strike (including over workplace safety, harassment or bullying) if it is outside the bargaining period for a new collective agreement.
Meanwhile, almost unnoticed by the news media, this week the Senate inquiry into corporate avoidance of the Fair Work Act continues.
Workers from Parmalat’s Echuca plant appeared before the committee on March 14. Parmalat workers allege their employer threatened to terminate their agreement (thus lowering the basis of negotiations) as a bargaining chip. In response to the threat of a legal four-hour strike, the workers have been locked out of their workplace since mid-January.
Another example of employers skirting the Fair Work Act can be found in Griffin Mining Company. On February 6, Terry Gray, chief operating officer of Griffin, fronted the committee regarding the company’s conduct in regards to its agreement with workers in Collie, Western Australia. After protracted negotiations, the company unilaterally terminated the agreement. The annualised salary of maintenance workers dropped by $24,000 to $29,000 per year, while they were expected to work seven extra hours per week. The previous day, Neil Weir, a Griffin Coal employee of 30 years, told the committee he had resigned (at the age of 60) in 2016 because the termination of the agreement would drop the value of his accrued entitlements (for example, his long service leave and unused annual leave) by more than half.
The Ballarat Regional Trade and Labour Council submission called attention to the lingering issue of Australian workplace agreements. These individual agreements were a key feature of the WorkChoices legislation. AWAs could strike out penalty rates and other award minimums and be offered to new employees on a “take it or leave it” basis. The Fair Work Act prohibits new AWAs being put in place, but it sets no end date for existing ones. If neither party seeks to terminate an AWA it will continue to operate, even with conditions that would be illegal to put in place now. Because, unlike collective agreements, AWAs are not registered with any agency (indeed, that lack of oversight was one of the biggest controversies to beset WorkChoices), it’s difficult to know how many are still in operation.
None of these instances breach the letter of the Fair Work Act, although the argument from employees and unions in each case has been that they breach the spirit or intention. Employees can only break the law, employers have the luxury of avoiding it.
*Correction: a previous version of this story stated Griffin employees were dropped to award conditions after their agreement were terminated. This is incorrect. The company elected to pay workers at 40% above the award minimum for six months after the termination of the EBA.
The reporting date for the committee is set for August 7, 2017.
I absolutely agree with Sally. Conservatives would like to focus on the actions of a small group of workers in positions of economic power. However, after three years of stalemate bargaining, abuse of casual employment their is a need to ensure that our laws serve working people and not just the well connected employers.
In 2011, MP’s gave themselves a 28% pay rise with the tick of a pen. Yep, they gave up some entitlements but they kept a whole motza of others of course. At the same time, they’ve changed laws making it very difficult for workers to take industrial action for reasonable pay increases without technically breaking the law. The sheer hypocrisy of outbursts from the likes of Bernardi and his ilk, only further illustrates what a disgusting and putrid group of human beings inhabit the corridors and offices of our parliament.
If no worker had ever challenged and broken the laws of the day, at some stage over the past 200 years we would all be still working as serfs in a feudal system!
Sally McManus has to be the most impressive political figure to emerge in the last decade. She remained calm in the face of absurd leading questions and answered honestly, and calmly. She made it clear that it is the right (and duty) of unions (and citizens) to break unjust laws. In saying this she is speaking in the same tradition of Thoreau, Thomas Paine and the values that the Lib/Nat party’s favourite country, the USA, hold as their founding values.
I look forward to seeing more of her.
Excellent summary – I totally agree.
I also agree – inspiring that finally that a leader on the left is asserting the rights of people to protest dangerous and unjust treatment.
Giving that free-kick to the conservative anti-union mob? Who’s best placed to judge when a law is “unjust”?
On the other side how many unionists have the resources, connections and money, that lies at the disposal of miscreant politicians and corporate crooks, to avoid punishment?
GFC?
Klewso I do think the pendulum has swung much too far in the other direction. The problem is that Howard’s government made it too easy for employers to manipulate AWA’s ensuring they undercut workers at every turn. In the grand scheme of things if unions don’t exist there needs to be some sort of body to protect Australian workers, human rights and status in law, so these can continue to exist not be whittled away by such bully boys as Bernardi, Christiansen et al. There needs to be protection from the conservative government & also the employers & large corporates who cheat, steal or undercut at every turn, (ensuring their donations given to the government watering down much of the already weakened “workers protections” continuing to undercut industrial laws) otherwise the industrial landscape is going to be even more perilous than it currently is, and as one of the previous observers has already noted that we’ll be heading back down the steep and slippery track to serfdom, or the days of the industrial revolution, where employees safety was compromised daily, and families counted their blessings when members came home alive and in one piece. The government needs to accept responsibility for the fact that they are letting many of the major employers get away with daylight robbery (yes 7-11 & Caltex we’re talking about you), and compromising workers safety. Many can’t or won’t be bothered taking responsibility for paying their employees properly or maintaining a duty of care which is part and parcel of their contract in law, when they employ staff no matter what type of contract is entered int0. This is why we are seeing so many of the “ambulance chasers,” law firms employees are forced to approach as they often have weak or non existent union membership, having to go to court to get paid, what in many cases should already be a given, when employees are injured or cheated out of their pay, this doesn’t bode well for the future of the Australian workforce.
I agree, but I reckon there are other ways to win the hearts and minds of those voters on the sidelines than last night’s hairy-chest-beating bad vision PR.
….. Or are you taking issue with my point that workers/unionists are less well equipped to get away with what their “betters” are?