John Setka and the Federal Court

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A Federal Court judge has found the leadership of John Setka's construction union condoned the systematic and unlawful acts of its officials, including threatening managers who called the police on the union.

Justice Mordy Bromberg fined the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union $100,000 for breaching industrial laws on Melbourne construction sites and ordered its Victorian organisers Stephen Long and Drew MacDonald to personally pay fines totalling $19,300.


CFMEU state secretary John Setka has been under pressure to step down over charges of harassing a woman.
The judge held that the officials repeatedly and deliberately entered sites without a right of entry permit and threatened the businesses of those who protested.
"The conduct was part of a deliberate and orchestrated campaign, which had the express or tacit approval of more senior officials of the CFMEU," he said.
The comments follow Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter declaring on Friday the CFMEU should be deregistered because of its "Olympic standards of unlawfulness" and as Mr Setka faces pressure to resign as Victorian branch secretary over charges of harassment.

According to the judgment, Mr Long and Mr MacDonald entered sites at Laverton and Cheltenham in early 2014 and refused to show entry permits to head contractor Qanstruct.
"We are not going down that path, are we?" Mr Long told a manager at the Cheltenham site. "Even if I’ve got a permit, that’s our policy that we don’t show it.”
When the site manager told him he would call the police, the official said: "You … don’t want to be the dog who calls the cops on a union official."
"We won’t forget this low act. We won’t forget that you did this.”
'You're on our hit list'
The manager called the police but Mr Long then threatened to "have 500 blokes on site here tomorrow".
"We won’t sign an EBA with you, next year you guys will be on nothing. Your wages will drop and you blokes will be on nothing.”
On another visit, he told the manager "you're on the top of our hit list".

Justice Bromberg said the CFMEU, in particular the Victorian branch, "has an appallingly long history of prior contraventions of industrial laws".
Further, he concluded “such behaviour was condoned by the senior leadership of the organisation".
“There is no evidence before me of the CFMEU taking any compliance action to counsel, educate or inform MacDonald or Long in order to prevent the re-occurrence of contravening conduct by them in the future.
"Nor is there any evidence before me of any compliance regime ever put in place by the CFMEU to address its long history of prior contraventions.”
CFMEU senior leadership 'must take action'
ABC commissioner Stephen McBurney said the penalty judgment sent a strong message to the CFMEU and its senior leadership that the union's unlawful behaviour will not be tolerated.

“The court has observed that senior leadership of the CFMEU, particularly in Victoria, must take action to stop its officials from breaking the law."
The decision marks the court's third use of personal payment orders, which were introduced last year and seek to prevent the union from paying its officials' fines.
Penalties on the CFMEU and its officials have now hit $4.2 million for this financial year, almost double the $2.7 million from 2017-18.
Australian Council of Trade Unions president Michele O'Neil has backed calls for Mr Setka to step down over his harassment charges, despite support from his membership.

On Friday, she attacked Mr Porter's push for the deregistration of the CFMEU as "an attack on basic democratic freedoms".
She said the minister had now explicitly stated his Ensuring Integrity Bill was designed to give the Morrison government power to deregister the CFMEU.
“Let’s be very clear, Mr Porter is seeking to revoke the basic rights of all working people in Australia to join, run and be represented by the union of their choice.
“Unions are democratic organisations and attacking them hurts all working people."
She said the minister was "being blatantly politically opportunistic" and argued the bill imposed harsher and more rigorous requirements than on any other organisation.

https://www.afr.com/leadership/workplac ... 621-p5202a