Abbott and the unions

Next is an act most workers would have had no idea had any relevance to them and their unions, the Registered Organisations Act.

Eric Abetz, the new Industrial Relations Minister had earlier spearheaded an attempt to amend this act during the Rudd/Gillard government. Using examples such as the scandal enveloping the Health Services Union (HSU), the Coalition claimed that they would amend the laws to make sure unions were subject to the same penalties as business. One can only assume he didn't mean companies like James Hardie which have escaped sanctions for far worse crimes against workers than the HSU.

However it is clear that all of the changes to the RO Act are targeted at unions. The Registered Organisations Commission (ROC) to be established will have powers similar to those of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, royal commission-style powers to produce documents and demand people answer questions or face jail terms. In practice, the amendments could see union officials face fines of up to $340,000 and jail of up to five years, up from civil fines of $50,000 for organisations and $10,000 for individuals.

One of the main purposes of changes to the RO Act appears to be to take the powers of the Fair Work Act to discipline unions and place them in, what the government describes as, a "less biased" body. Claims by Eric Abetz and others that the FW Commission was unable to deal with the corruption accusations against the HSU are fuelling this change. It will be able to commence legal proceedings and refer possible offences to prosecutors, a power that was taken away from the FW Commission under Labor's changes. Auditing, right to look at membership records, committee of management minutes and so on will all be housed within the ROC, as well as the power to cancel the registration of an organisation.

The government also spells out in its Explanatory Memorandum that the ROC will place limitations on the right to freedom of association, the right to the presumption of innocence and the right to be free from self-incrimination.

But that is okay it seems, because, the government argues, the ROC's powers are subject to judicial, parliamentary and administrative oversight. The Explanatory Memorandum writes: "The bill is compatible with human rights because, to the extent that it may limit human rights, those limitations are reasonable, necessary and proportionate."

Similar laws in NSW and Queensland are currently under legal challenge and it can be expected unions and other bodies will challenge these changes to federal law.

At the same time, the government is pressing ahead with its promised changes to the ABCC. Now called theFair Work Building and Construction Inspectorate, Abbott signalled some years ago that he would reinstate the full powers of the ABCC "We will re-establish the ABCC and finish the job…The law must be supreme, no one is above the law."

Given the law, as the current FWA outlines, outlaws just about any industrial action outside a prescribed bargaining period and can even make action during that time illegal, there is almost no possibility of unions escaping its penalties. As well activities such as the right of union officials to go onto the job, actions over OH&S and other basic rights were effectively prohibited under the original ABCC laws. While the law was modified under the Gillard government, easing some of these strictures, Abbott wants full reinstatement.

Rather than wait for next July the government is already shifting some of the functions of the BII to the ROC, changing other functions through regulation and reinstated two previous ABCC Commissioners, known for their support of Coalition goals in this area. There will also be the imposition of a federal government code of conduct for the building industry which penalises companies considered to have too "union friendly" agreements. The code of conduct severely restricts what wages and conditions are negotiable on site. It may however hit a snag, as the Victorian Code of Conduct has recently, with the Napthine government facing a $53,000 fine for breaking workplace laws by threatening not to use Lend Lease on the new Bendigo Hospital project.

In particular the powers to investigate underpayment of wages and the like will go to the Fair Work Ombudsmen. The purpose of this is "free resources to investigate illegal activities". There are also suggestions of bringing in police to examine "unlawful activity" in the industry. Not it might be thought, the activities of building companies such as Leightons, but clearly industrial action by workers deemed illegal in the Catch 22 provisions of the law.

As the CFMEU's Dave Noonan commented on news of the government's proposed changes: "The record shows that the first ABCC was a $135 million dud. Despite its coercive powers it failed to uncover any major illegalities… What taxpayers got for their money was a bureaucracy that targeted construction workers." It neither investigated the crime of underpayments nor sham contracting, nor any of the other well-known criminal behaviour of companies in the industry.

But what was truly criminal about the previous ABCC is that under its watch deaths on construction sites rose to nearly one a week. In other words Abbott's message to construction workers was "drop dead".

Both Bill Shorten and the CFMEU have promised to fight the Abbott government's "ideological war on working Australians every step of the way, including in the building and construction industry". It will take every union gearing up to defend the wages, conditions and civil liberties of workers to beat these new laws and a government determined to "finish the job" as Tony Abbott has promised.