Australian Building and Construction Commissioner (ABCC), John Lloyd, today announced that proceedings were filed in the Federal Court of Australia by the ABCC against 107 employees working on the Perth-Mandurah railway project.
The ABCC alleges that from 24 February 2006 to 3 March 2006 on the section of the railway project known as New Metro Rail City Project – Package F:
- 107 employees contravened section 38 of the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act 2005 (BCII Act) by taking unlawful industrial action; and
- 82 employees breached an order of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) made pursuant to section 127 of the Workplace Relations Act 1996. The order directed the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) and its members employed on the Package F to not take industrial action.
The ABCC is seeking:
- a declaration that each of the employees engaged in unlawful industrial action;
- a declaration that employees served with the AIRC order breached the terms of the order; and
- penalties for the contraventions.
The maximum penalties that can be imposed against each employee are $22,000 for a contravention of section 38 of the BCII Act and $6,600 for a contravention of the AIRC order.
The employees were on strike for seven days commencing on 24 February 2006. They returned to work on 8 March 2006. The issue that precipitated the strike was the termination of a union shop steward on the Project.
The strike occurred before the WorkChoices amendments commenced and the ABCC proceedings rely on the pre-WorkChoices legislation.
The employees’ union the CFMEU is not subject to the proceedings. A union official addressed the stopwork meetings associated with the case. The union has submitted court statements that the official advised the employees they were exposed to severe penalties by taking strike action and recommended a return to work. The employees rejected this recommendation on more than one occasion.