The Federal Magistrates Court in Sydney has imposed penalties totalling $28,600 on the CFMEU, CFMEU (NSW) and organiser Sammy Manna for unlawfully threatening a concreting subcontractor on a shopping centre project with intent to coerce him and his workers to join the CFMEU.
ABC Commissioner John Lloyd said the case highlights an ongoing issue:
“There is no excuse for trampling on the rights of smaller subcontractors.”
The court found Mr Manna threatened a concreting contractor that if he and his workers did not join the CFMEU, Mr Manna would have the contractor audited, send him bankrupt, ‘screw’ him and make his ‘life a misery.’
In today’s decision Federal Magistrate Smith held:
“In the present case, union power and influence was invoked by Mr Manna seriously to interfere in the contractual arrangements of a small contractor legitimately employed on an important building project.”
“Coercion of the present type has an insidious quality, since it occurs in private conversation in circumstances of oppression of the weak by the powerful.”
"None of the respondents have satisfied me that they will take appropriate corrective action in relation to the future actions of Mr Manna or other CFMEU organisers to ensure that similar coercion of a vulnerable subcontractor will not occur again."
Penalties of $13,000 respectively were imposed on the CFMEU, and CFMEU (NSW) and $2600 on Mr Manna for contravening s.789 of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 at a Toongabbie building site in April 2006.
The court also found:
“His (Mr Manna’s) conduct showed a clear lack of awareness amounting to disregard of the values of freedom of association which are protected by the legislation. It was conduct by a very experienced union official, at a time when he should have been informed of and fully aware of the unlawful nature of his conduct. In my opinion, it is appropriately characterised as reprehensible on his part."
Commissioner Lloyd said the ABCC will continue to pursue those who unlawfully threaten and intimidate subcontractors.