Aust. unions prepare to fight fines legislation

Press, 7 April 1987, Page 10

Aust. unions prepare to fight fines legislation

NZPA correspondent Sydney

Australian trade unions are gearing up to fight for the repeal of penal legislation that allows employers to sue them for financial losses. Fifteen unions, including the powerful metal workers and building workers unions, have called on the Australian Council of Trade Unions to begin a national campaign against the legislation, which they say threatens their right to exist.

The move follows the Federal Court fining the Plumbers and Gasfitters Employees’ Union sAust2Bo,ooo ($343,800) last Friday for contempt of court. The fine was imposed under a section of the Trade Practices Act that prohibits industrial action against third parties in disputes.

The same section was used to fine the Meat Workers’ Union SAustl4o,ooo last year and later award SAustl.79 million damages against the union for loss of earn-

ings at the Mudginberri abattoir in the Northern Territory. The plumbers were fined for defying a court order to lift bans on 14 Sydney building sites. The court also ordered that from today the union be fined sAustl4o,ooo for every day it refused to end its nine-month-old industrial campaign for a pay rise and shorter working week. If the fines are not paid within 10 days, the employers can apply to have the union’s funds sequestrated.

Damages of several million dollars could also be awarded against the plumbers when the full Trade Practices Act case against them is heard.

A statement from the unions condemning the fine imposed on the plumbers said they believed the decision, following the meat workers’ case, meant that the unions’ right to take industrial action had been taken away. “In the plumbers’ case, it proves that the so-called

secondary boycott legislation is not about boycotts but about declaring any industrial activity illegal if the employers object to it,” they said.

The unions said the Labour Government had sought to repeal the contentious section of the Trade Practices Act, but had been frustrated by the Australian Democrats.

A spokesman for the A.C.T.U. said yesterday the council would take whatever action was needed to support a campaign for the repeal of the legislation. But the leader of the Opposition, Mr John Howard, who put the section into the law as a member of the last Liberal Government, said the Government should not bow to union pressure to have it repealed.

“That section has done more than any other thing in the law to protect businesses both large and small against militant trade union conduct and it must not be repealed,” he said.