The Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) is seeking fines of A$22,000 against each worker for contravening the Building and Construction Industry Improvement (BCII) Act. Eighty-two workers face additional A$6,600 fines each for defying an order by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission to go back to work.

The writs are the first to be served against individual workers under the BCII Act, which was passed into law in September 2005. With the aim of driving the union out of the construction industry, the act has made it illegal for workers to take industrial action without the agreement of the employer. The act also established the ABCC, with draconian powers to interrogate construction workers.

A July 7 article in The Australian reported that the ABCC was also preparing prosecutions against other workers in Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia, and Tasmania.

The Perth construction workers walked off the job on February 24 over the sacking of their shop steward, Peter Ballard. In an interview with the Militant, Mal Peters, the site safety officer elected to replace Ballard as shop steward, described how Ballard had been fired while on sick leave. He added that since then he too is being targeted by the bosses for possible firing.

“I don’t know about other working class people but we just don’t have $28,000,” Peters told a meeting of 100 people at the University of New South Wales. In the audience were around 70 workers from a construction site on the campus.

Peters described how the A$1.5 billion rail project had fallen behind schedule and that the company pushed workers to work through the night and refused to pay the bonuses stipulated in their contract.

Peters also spoke at a July 24 solidarity meeting that drew 150 people. It was held at the Sydney headquarters of Unions New South Wales, the labor council here, and chaired by CFMEU New South Wales president Peter McClelland.

The meeting was addressed by several other speakers including Andreia Viegas, the widow of a construction worker electrocuted on a work site north of Sydney. Viegas said, “The company put profit first and took a chance that a life could be lost.” She called on workers to support the right of entry for union officials to ensure safety.

Andrew Ferguson, New South Wales secretary of the CFMEU, explained that “on average one worker dies every week on a construction site in Australia.”

Peters announced that a protest action would be held in Perth on August 29, the first day of the federal court hearings. When asked if any of the workers had any intention of paying the fine, Peters responded, “We’ll go to jail if we have to but we won’t pay the fines.”
 
 
Related articles:
On the Picket Line  
 
 
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