Aust. court bills union $1.7M

Press, 23 July 1986, Page 12

Aust. court bills union $1.7M

By

CHRIS PETERS,

of NZPA Sydney The Federal Court of Australia has made legal and industrial history by ordering the meatworkers union to pay a Northern Territory abattoir sAustl.7 ($2.02) million in damages for losses caused by secondary picketing. The landmark decision has set farm and industry leaders rejoicing, and shocked the powerful union movement. The decision concerns the small Mudginberri Station freezing works, 200 km east of Darwin, which kills and exports to Europe wild buffalo once introduced from Africa. The works is run by an expatriate American and employs just 25 meatworkers. But the unlikely little abattoir has become the battleground for the first main test of strength between the all-powerful

Australian Meat Industry Employees’ Union, on the one hand, and Australia’s farmers, the Northern Territory Government, and employer groups on the other. The focus of the dispute was a new system of payment organised by the works’ boss, Jay Pendarvis, which allowed his staff to earn up to $ Aust 1100 a week by working long hours in what was a highly seasonal occupation. The system went outside the accepted unit tally system used throughout Australian meat works, but was still within the terms of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Act. The workers refused to heed union directives to stick to the accepted tally system of payment. They were expelled from the union, which set up a picket outside the works in May last year. Secondary picketing is

illegal, but that did not stop Federal Governmentemployed meat inspectors refusing to cross the picket line. Because their work was required for the meat to be registered for export, Mudginberri began losing money. What riled the Farmers’ Federation and the backers of the struggling works was that the Government in Canberra, which employs the inspectors, refused to order the inspectors to go to work. Legal action failed to force a change. That was when a tapestry of be-hind-the-scenes backing came into play that has so upset the unions. The Northern Territory Government arranged for Mudginberri to get money from its Agricultural Development and Marketing Authority to in effect buy the meat the works could not move. When the fund — reported to be sAustl million — ran dry, the Government approached

the Westpac bank on Mr Pendavis’s behalf and quickly secured a sAust2 million loan, underwritten by the Government. Within a month the Government transferred its financial business of more than sAustl billion a year from the Reserve Bank to Westpac. The requirement for Mudginberri was that it must sue the meatworkers’ union through the courts for damages, and from that the various loans be repaid. The union accused the Territory’s conservative Government of wanting to hound it out of the region. In July last year Mudginberri was granted an injunction against the union for the pickets to be lifted, and when they were not the union was fined for contempt of court and funds sequestered to pay the fine. The pickets were lifted in-Sep-tember. \

But not content with that victory, Mudginberri, true to its agreement with the Territory’s Government, took the union to court seeking damages under section 45D of the Trade Practices Act. The Federal Court ruling, handed down on Monday, found the A.M.I.E.U. guilty of a secondary boycott against the Mudginberri Station abattoir, and therefore responsible for losses incurred by the business as a result of pickets mounted by the union for four months. Those losses and damages were set at sAustl.7 million. The union says it will appeal to the Full Bench of the High Court, Australia’s ultimate judicial authority.

If that fails the union says it will have to mortgage and sell assets to pay the damages. According to reports yesterday it is the first time since its introduction

by the Fraser Government, in 1976, that section 45D has been carried through to its ultimate conclusion and a union fined for damages. The result has been to “dramatically change Australia’s industrial relations environment, proving in court that employers can successfully defy union demands and be repaid for lost income through civil law”. “What it means for other employers is that they are capable of striking individual agreements with their employees in defiance of union opposition, provided they remain within the terms of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act,” said “The Australian Financial Review” yesterday. “And if the unions attempt to exert economic pressure through outside bans, limitations and pickets, the employers can seeitc restitution through the r civil courts.”