'Extraordinary act of vandalism': Burrow calls on Senate to block union-busting bill

August 6, 2019
Sydney Morning Herald
 

The world's top union leader says the Morrison government's union-busting legislation has sent "shockwaves around the world", calling on the Senate crossbench to block it to protect workers' rights.   

Sharan Burrow, a former Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) president who is general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, said the fact that "a democratic country like Australia could actually pass such a bill" sent the wrong message to developing nations.


Sharan Burrow says the government's union-busting bill is "ideological revenge".

"Somebody ought to be calling out the absolute overstepping of the mark by this elected government. It's unions today, who's next?" Ms Burrow told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

"It is the sort of legislation that we expect from authoritarian countries or dictatorships ... When Australia takes such a stand, it sets back the struggles of workers everywhere in authoritarian governments for the very standards that people looked up to Australia for.


"It's extraordinary to think that Australia would dip to the standards of authoritarian control when in fact we have a strong rule of law that is capable of dealing with any misdemeanour of any individual in any walk of life."   

Australian union busting bill harmful to democracy, international trade union body says

The Ensuring Integrity Bill, which would make it easier for the government to deregister unions and disqualify officials if they breached industrial relations laws, passed in the lower house last week. Its fate now rests with the Senate crossbench.

First introduced in 2017, the amended bill has a greater chance of passing in the Senate this time around due to the smaller crossbench since the election and controversy over John Setka's refusal to stand down as CFMMEU Victorian branch secretary after pleading guilty to harassing his wife via abusive text messages. Just one vote is needed from either Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie, or one of two Centre Alliance senators, for the bill to become law.

Ms Burrow, whose organisation represents more than 207 million workers, said it would be "overreach" for the Parliament to respond to concerns about Mr Setka by eroding human rights.

"If there are individuals who are under scrutiny or have been charged or are in the process of being dealt with by the rule of law, then that's as it should be," she said.

Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter hit back, saying it was "ridiculous" to suggest that the bill would affect unionism in other countries.


The government will use union boss John Setka’s refusal to resign to bring in tough new laws

"It simply requires that registered organisations and their officials in Australia conduct themselves according to Australian law," Mr Porter said.


Government MPs who make up a majority on a parliamentary human rights committee that scrutinises legislation voted for the bill on Wednesday despite saying two days earlier that it put workers' rights at risk.

The human rights committee backed the ACTU in raising concerns about the bill's interaction with Australia's obligation under international law to safeguard freedom of association, including the right for unionists to elect their own officials.

Ms Burrow dubbed the legislation "an extraordinary act of vandalism really in terms of the democratic rights and freedoms of Australia". 

"Nobody can look at this with an objective eye and say it is anything but an act of some sort of ideological revenge," she said, warning that the bill would do "far-reaching damage to our democratic structures".   

"I would say to the Senate, please protect our democracy."

Debate over the legislation has played out against the backdrop of a push by Labor leader Anthony Albanese to expel Mr Setka from the ALP. Mr Setka is challenging the bid to expel him in the Federal Court.

The militant Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union was fined more than $4.2 million last financial year for repeatedly contravening the Fair Work Act.

The upper house will vote on the bill after a Senate inquiry into the legislation reports back in late October.'

Anyway - some discussion:-

https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employee-entitlements/industrial-action-and-union-me...

http://www.amma.org.au/help/mining-reform/mining-publications/cfmeu-coerces-comp...



"Earlier industrial action on the site in September 2013 had resulted in the Fair Work Commission (FWC) making orders that all future industrial action stop, naming 16 employees to whom the order applied.

In making the order, the FWC found that none of the stoppages of work on the site reflected reasonable concerns about imminent serious risks to employee health or safety. The action that each of the 16 employees participated in was therefore unprotected action and, given the likelihood it would occur again, the order was made that the 16 refrain from further industrial action for six months.

Two months after the FWC order was made, there was a serious safety incident onsite when the jib of a crane came into contact with the rope of another crane. A meeting of workers was called after which the majority of workers withdrew their labour."



https://qnt.cfmeu.org.au/news/egg-their-faces-again-pm%E2%80%99s-pet-building-co...

Grappler Deep State Feller wrote on Aug 6^th, 2019 at 7:25am:

An interesting idea. If a company has a wanton disregard for the law, deregister the company and strip the directors and shareholders of the company of all protections for limited liability so they become personally liable.

Bam wrote on Aug 6^th, 2019 at 2:14pm:



.... and prosecute them.... why discriminate against Unions?

How the vicious union thugs and vandals are justifying spending big money on automation and chucking workers out on the street.




World’s first fully automated intermodal terminal to be built in Australia
Brent Balinski by Brent Balinski   December 21, 2018


World’s first fully automated intermodal terminal to be built in Australia. Not a sabotaging unionist in sight!!!

Sydney’s new intermodal freight precinct will be the largest in Australia – and that’s good for the environment.

The new Moorebank Logistics Park will move freight from road to rail via a number of world-first innovations, having a “considerable environmental impact”, according to Qube, the precinct’s owner and developer.

The project will link a multimodal logistics facility to Port Botany by rail. The first sod on the 243-hectare site south of Sydney was turned last year. The park features onsite renewable energy generation and other environmental measures.



Throughput capacity will be 1 million twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) containers at that stage. According to Qube, completion will also see capacity of 500,000 TEU of interstate and regional freight annually, and up to 850,000 square metres of warehousing.

Freight logistics and carbon abatement modelling from engineering consultancy Arcadis predicts it will reduce transport-related emissions by 110,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, the equivalent of taking 11,000 vehicles off the road.

Transport is a major contributor to Australia’s overall greenhouse gas emissions, with Commonwealth figures from 2016 showing the sector contributed 17 per cent of the total.

“By switching to rail solutions, the Moorebank project will reduce emissions, reduce urban congestion and improve national freight connectivity for years to come,” Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) CEO Ian Learmonth said last year.

The project has been assisted with $150 million in financing from the CEFC.

Energy and infrastructure consultancy Advisian, which is advising on the project, said the precinct will “reduce carbon dioxide emissions and safety risk through the use of world-first, fully automated, electrically powered container handling equipment and automated systems”.

The project will also generate 65 million kilowatt hours per year through renewable sources.

Claire Hodgson, Sustainability Lead for Australia Pacific at Arcadis, said “the net greenhouse gas emissions produced by not building this facility are higher than building it”.

Fully automatic
Qube’s Moorebank project will be the “world’s first fully automated intermodal terminal”, according to Kalmar and Navis, which are providing automation equipment and software.

Kalmar said the project’s equipment “can be operated electrically on locally produced solar power”. It includes four automated stacking cranes, eight automated rail-mounted gantry cranes, eight hybrid AutoShuttles, and Navis’s N4 terminal operating system.

World firsts include the automated load and discharge of containers, and automated handling of containers to and from trucks with AutoShuttles.

https://www.createdigital.org.au/worlds-first-automated-intermodal-terminal-aust...

"How the vicious union thugs and vandals are justifying spending big money on automation and chucking workers out on the street."

Has anyone explained to you how bizarre that non-reasoning is?  In every way?