A union and two of its chief agitators have been slapped with almost $250,000 in fines for “arrogant” industrial action on a Footscray worksite.
The Federal Court last month issued a $200,000 penalty to the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), and a further $32,000 fine to official Joe Myles and $10,000 fine to official Drew MacDonald, for disrupting a concrete pour during construction of the Regional Rail Link project.
Justice Richard Tracey found Myles and MacDonald had acted improperly in the 2014 incident.
Myles was fined for encouraging workers to stop work for a 10-minute period and for obstructing a concrete pour by standing between a concrete pump and a concrete truck.
MacDonald was penalised for standing in the path of a concrete truck to prevent the truck from moving.
Justice Tracey did not accept that their conduct was related to health and safety issues relating to manual lifting on the project.
He found Myles has “a deplorable personal history” of offending and MacDonald also had a chequered history.
“Their contravening conduct on 27 February 2014 was arrogant and dismissive of warnings given to them that they were acting unlawfully.
“While espousing an interest in ensuring safety on the site, they deliberately placed themselves in dangerous positions in order to obstruct the movement of trucks carrying concrete to the site.”
He noted the CFMEU has regularly been found to have contravened the Fair Work Act.
“The Commissioner has provided the court with a table which records contraventions by the CFMEU of industrial legislation on more than 100 occasions over the 15 years from 1999 to 2014,” he said.
“These contraventions have led to the imposition of pecuniary penalties totalling millions of dollars.”
Justice Tracey found that the CFMEU did not express any contrition for the offending conduct of its officials or provide assurance such misconduct would not be repeated.
