Construction workers rallying in Canberra at 12.30pm outside Parliament House in orange ‘rights on site’ ‘one law for all’ T-shirts with Kim Sattler from Unions ACT. We cheered when Dave Nunan CFMEU Construction Secretary announced that Noel Washington received a letter saying charges have been dropped. He now no longer faces jail for refusing to answer ABCC inquisition into a union meeting held off site in a lunch break. Other construction workers are still being treated worse than criminals by the ABCC and all their operations have to cease.
The rally urged the DPM to repeal the ABCC (see posts) in this Parliamentary sitting.
Labor’s Senator Gavin Marshall supporting the campaign was presented with a petition with thousands of names to be tabled in the Senate today calling for the Building and Construction Act to be repealed. Construction workers and unions wait for the government’s response.
it is further worrying that the DPM is keeping the part of the WorkChoices law that forbids workers to exercise a democratic right to attend such short protest rallies. The freedom to withdraw labour to attend a protest rally on issues that directly impacts on a workers economic interests ought not to be subject to penalties, i.e. liable to be made unlawful under the ‘Fair’ Work Bill.
Rather than losing pay for time, if you are away for an extra 10 minutes, you lose automatically 4 hours pay. See here posts on the right to politically strike.
Charges against Washington dropped
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