02-09-2024: On August 23, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) Federal Government placed the construction arm of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) into administration, after the federal parliament passed a law allowing for the takeover.[1] All state branches are affected, from New South Wales (NSW), Victoria (VIC), Tasmania (TAS), and Queensland (QLD) to Western Australia (WA) and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) after initial suggestions that the latter two would be exempt. Mark Irving KC (King’s Counsel), a Melbourne barrister, will be paid a hefty sum to administer the affairs of the CFMEU for at least three years, possibly five. Irving has already removed 270 Union officers from their voluntary positions, claiming that the administration will have “zero tolerance for corruption or the involvement of organised crime….and will address fraud and corruption within the construction industry.”[2] Eleven senior CFMEU officials have been sacked, though the CFMEU itself only found out through the media, rather than direct communication. In a statement, the CFMEU said “the entire farce was born through a baseless media and government stitch up.”[3]

Unproven allegations

This is certainly true, as while there has been a media propaganda campaign in the past few months alleging corruption and organised crime within the CFMEU, none of it has been taken to court, let alone proven in a court. In all Unions there is a possibility of corruption within them, and in their dealings with employers, given the high stakes for the functioning of significant sections of a capitalist economy. Yet corruption and crime is hardly the motivation of the mainstream media and the ALP, acting on behalf of Australia’s ruling class. Rather, it is about an attempt to outlaw militant and effective Unionism, which wins substantial gains for its members and workers in the industry. The CFMEU, through determined and committed organising, has won pay increases of between 5 and 6% per year, compared to pay increases of 3% or even less for many workers in other industries. This is too much, according to multi-million dollar developers and their willing devotees in parliament, and so the CFMEU must supposedly be brought to heel.

National employer association peak body the Australian Industry Group welcomed the moves against the CFMEU, unsurprisingly. The administrator of the CFMEU will have vast powers, including removing officials, officers and employees from their positions, the taking possession of all of the Union’s property and credit cards, the keeping and maintaining of a register of members, and the ability to force changes in the rules of the Union.[4] The Australian federal government has moved to deregister Unions in the past, but the current moves against the CFMEU are unprecedented, and represent an assault on all workers and all Unions. Workers have the right to form Unions to defend their interests, to bargain with employers, to ensure adequate health and safety on the job, to improve their pay and conditions – and to elect their own officials to administer their own affairs. The use of the state to interfere in the direct operation of Unions, on charges lacking evidence, is rather an attempt to dissuade working people away from organising a strong defence of their interests at all.

For a break with the state

While workers should defend the CFMEU against this extraordinary attack, and should stand for the right of working people to run their own Unions, there are other significant matters involved. This latest broadside against the CFMEU and effectively all Unions in Australia has been led by the ALP, the party which was formed out of Unions more than a hundred years ago. Yet still to this day, many Unions are still affiliated to the ALP, and still donate vast amounts of money to this party. In return, Unions often received little, and as now, cop a disastrous betrayal. However, despite this, many Union officials remain loyal to the ALP and many of them remain actual members of the ALP. Zach Smith, the national secretary of the CFMEU, is a member of the ALP. Perhaps tellingly, he is not one of the senior officials to have been terminated by Mark Irving. The CFMEU was instrumental in putting the current ALP federal government in place, but in return, the ALP has forced it into administration for up to five years! Union backing of the ALP is a massive and ongoing contradiction for the labour movement.

There should be a line drawn between members of a Union and its paid officials. Members of a Union are of course not responsible for the actions of officials who prioritise their careers, or the fortunes of the ALP, over and above their own members and workers generally. Yet in the case of the Victorian CFMEU, the actions of former leader John Setka and other officials during the fraudulent “Covid pandemic” were abominable. Setka’s ties to the ALP and to the world’s worst Covid tyrant “Dictator Dan Andrews” meant that the CFMEU officials enforced vaccine mandates on their own members. Millions have died or have been seriously injured as a result of being injected with these extremely dangerous formulas. This led to brave actions by CFMEU members in Melbourne, who faced off against their own officials for potentially endangering their lives, or at the very least threatening their livelihoods if they retained decision making power over their own bodies. After 18 months of lockdown hell, CFMEU members in Melbourne picketed their own offices, demanding that John Setka face them for enforcing the vaccine mandates while in an alliance with Dictator Dan Andrews and the ALP.[5]

Needless to say, a Union which potentially places its members’ lives in danger, let alone refuses to defend their jobs, can barely be described as a Union. The Red Union group,[6] a grouping of non-ALP aligned Unions, did oppose vaccine mandates for their members, and their membership vastly expanded as result. This is an advance, and the Red Unions now offer an alternative for workers. However, the Red Union has unspecified links with the Liberal National Party (LNP) the party of conservative rule in Australia. The fact that a LNP friendly Unions are now challenging ALP aligned Unions for members is a dire reflection on the state of the Union movement in Australia. What is required are real Unions which are not affiliated in any way to either of the ruling capitalist parties. Union officialdom cannot be challenged without a genuine workers’ party being built. Such a party can only be a Marxist vanguard party, committed to the struggle to remove a declining capitalism with its threats of recession and global war, and the raising of workers to a position of societal power.

Workers League

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

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[1] www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-23/cfmeu-branches-forced-into-administration/104260994 (28-08-2024)

[2] www.au.news.yahoo.com/cfmeu-administrator-vows-zero-tolerance-153000441.html (28-08-2024)

[3] www.sourceable.net/270-australian-construction-union-officials-dumped/ (28-08-2024)

[4] www.fwc.gov.au/documents/reporting/media-release-application-appointment-independent-administrator-cfmeu-2024-08-02.pdf (28-08-2024)

[5] www.redfireonline.com/2021/09/25/abolish-vaccine-mandates-defend-the-cfmeu-rank-and-file-statement-of-the-workers-league/ (28-08-2024)

[6] www.redunion.com.au/ (28-08-2024)

Image: Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) members march in Brisbane against the federal government’s move to force the Union into administration. http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au