Key Points
- The CFMEU’s construction division is under fire over reports of corruption and links to organised crime.
- Labor’s national executive is considering limiting donations from the construction division.
- Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke has threatened to introduce legislation if the CFMEU challenged proceedings.
Labor’s national executive is deciding whether it will continue taking donations from the embattled Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union’s (CFMEU) construction division after state branches and the peak union body suspended links.
The union’s construction division has been under fire over a series of Nine newspaper reports alleging corrupt conduct and organised crime links.
The national executive was set to meet on Thursday and would be “dealing with this in a fairly firm fashion”, Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke said.
Minister Tony Burke warned he would introduce legislation if the CFMEU challenged proceedings.
“A number of state branches have already done so,” he said but wouldn’t pre-empt whether the executive would cut ties or refuse future donations.
While not wishing to breach that separation either, cabinet minister Bill Shorten told the ABC’s 7.30 program he fully expected the executive “to make sure there’s no more donations received from the CFMEU until their house is cleaned”.
Burke has moved to install an independent administrator to overhaul the construction arm of the union.
He warned he would introduce legislation into parliament if the CFMEU challenged the proceedings.
The administrator would be appointed after a court application by the Fair Work Commission.
“The government will ensure the regulator has all the powers it needs to appoint administrators, there can be no place for criminality or corruption in any part of the construction industry,” Burke said.
The commission’s general manager Murray Furlong said his organisation was carefully considering the allegations and had shared information with law enforcement.
Peak union body the Australian Council of Trade Unions has suspended the construction and general division of the CFMEU while various state Labor governments have also moved to ice their affiliations and halt donations.
The vote of about 50 ACTU executives was almost unanimous, secretary Sally McManus said.
McManus warned the union not to fight the Fair Work Commission’s push to appoint an administrator, saying it was the best way to ensure confidence in the labour movement.
“We would ask the union, the whole of the union, including the Queensland branch, to cooperate with external independent administrators, this is the best path forward,” she said.
Alleged criminal actions didn’t represent the trade union movement, McManus added.
The suspension of the division would last until the union could demonstrate “they are a well-functioning, clean union free of any criminal elements”.
Speaking to ABC Radio on Thursday, McManus also said it could take “years” to clean up the CFMEU with processes to put in new leadership.
“Unions are democratically run organisations and should be, and that [new leadership] should happen as soon as that union is in a position to govern itself, and has to be after the criminal elements are kicked out,” she said.
The CFMEU argues the move will strip tens of thousands of workers of effective representation.
The union has also argued it can clean up its divisions, including with an independent review.
