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Australian trade union penalised over improper conduct

Australian trade union penalised over improper conduct

July 23, 2024
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Fair Work Ombudsman has secured a total of AUD 168,000 (USD 111,267) in penalties in court against the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU) and one of its officials for improper conduct that included “obnoxious, bullying interactions” at a construction site in Melbourne, Australia.

The Federal Court has imposed penalties of AUD 150,000 (USD 111,337) against the CFMEU and penalties of AUD 18,000 (USD 11,930) against Paul Tzimas.

Tzimas, and, through him and another CFMEU official, the CFMEU, admitted breaching section 500 of the Fair Work Act by acting in an improper manner at the West Gate Tunnel construction project in Melbourne in December 2019.

On the evening of 3 December 2019, Tzimas and another CFMEU official entered the West Gate Tunnel construction site and proceeded to a scaffold area in an exclusion zone, which had the effect of delaying the installation of five bridge beams.

The improper conduct included abusive comments Tzimas made to a WorkSafe Victoria inspector and Victoria Police officers at the site in the early hours of 4 December 2019 after they asked Tzimas and the other CFMEU official to leave the exclusion zone.

The comments included Tzimas calling the WorkSafe Victoria inspector “corrupt”, a “disgrace” and a “lapdog” to the site’s construction contractor. Tzimas also called the Victorian Police officers a “disgrace” and a “lapdog” to the contractor.

Justice Snaden found that Tzimas and the other CFMEU official were not justified in behaving the way they did and their conduct “bespoke a thuggish assertion of control over how the site should operate”.

“They sought to appropriate unto themselves an authority that they plainly did not possess; and, when challenged, their response was to bully their interlocutors with unwarranted insults and abuse,” Snaden said.

“There is no possible justification for the conduct in which they engaged; and yet each felt licensed to obstruct the performance of work, and to bully and abuse those who sought to persuade them not to, including independent third parties who were unwittingly called upon to deploy their expertise in a difficult situation in the middle of the night,” Snaden said.

Justice Snaden found that there was a need to impose penalties to deter the CFMEU, Tzimas and other workplace participants from similar conduct in future.

“The court must exact a heavy toll: not merely to ensure that Mr Tzimas and the CFMEU are brought to account for the obnoxious, bullying interactions in which they indulged; but also to serve as a deterrent to others who might otherwise be minded to act in an inappropriate manner when exercising rights of entry,” Snaden said.

The legal action against the CFMEU and Mr Tzimas was launched by the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner (ABCC) in 2020.

Under federal legislation, responsibility for the case transferred from the ABCC to the Fair Work Ombudsman in December 2022.

Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth said the court penalties affirmed the seriousness of breaching laws requiring permit holders to comply with the law.