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29 November, 2010
Justice was delivered in Australia last week for a construction trade unionist who faced jail time for exercising his basic trade union rights. Ark Tribe, a building tradesman and member of the Construction, Forestry, Mining, and Energy Union (CFMEU), was acquitted in Adelaide Magistrates Court on 24 November on charges he defied the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).
His alleged crime: he refused to be interviewed by the ABCC’s watchdog arm over what matters occurring inside a union meeting. Tribe faced six months in jail and a heavy fine for taking a stand in defense of his universally protected labour rights. Before a packed courtroom and hundreds of union supporters outside, Tribe, 47, was acquitted by Magistrate David Whittle on a technicality.
CFMEU's Ark Tribe
The acquittal and attention the case brought in Australia should be cause for the Australian Parliament to move forward and strip the ABCC of the over-reaching powers given it in 2005 by former Prime Minister John Howard. Then, the government gave the ABCC witch-hunt authority involving industrial actions that no other work sector in Australia has.
On 30 May 2008, Tribe and others were working a construction project on Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia, when serious safety violations caused a stop-work action. The workers met in a union meeting off-site, drew up a list of the safety concerns, and presented them to the site boss. It took CFMEU intervention and a South Australia state government safety regulator to correct the safety deficiencies, and after a few days work was back to normal.
But the ABCC’s coercive investigatory unit began interviewing workers as to what was said and by whom in union meeting. When it came Tribe’s turn for the compulsory interview, he refused to cooperate. That’s all it took for a possible six months in the slammer and a steep fine.
Appearing at the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) Congress last year, Tribe, a rigger, said, “I’m here because like any other proud Australian, I believe that when injustice becomes law, then resistance becomes duty.”
Noel Washington
Tribe’s case is reminiscent of that of Noel Washington, a CFMEU Senior Vice President who faced similar charges by the ABCC for a lunch-hour meeting he held with construction workers in Victoria state in 2007. The ABCC demanded an account of comments made during the meeting and when Washington failed to show for the hearing, charges were brought. A state prosecutor dropped the case three days before his trial date late in 2008.
The ICEM considers it a travesty that such an unjust statute criminalizing legitimate trade union activity is still on the books in Australia. Although there was a recent effort under the Labour Government to repeal the ABCC’s watchdog powers, it failed. The Ark Tribe case should now be the springboard to finally rid Australia of this errant misuse of power by the ABCC.