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Issue No. 143 | 05 July 2002 |
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Bad Bosses
Interview: Media Magnet Bad Boss: Abbott's Heroes Technology: All in the Family International: New Labour's Cracks Economics: Virtuality Check History: Necessary Utopias Poetry: Let Me Bring Love Review: How Not To Get It Together Satire: NZ, UK Added to Australia’s Migration Zone
The Soapbox The Locker Room Bosswatch Week in Review
 Lessons from Air DisasterBuggering the BushThe Great GiveawayDown and OutWhy I hate Telstra
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News Revealed: The Evidence Cole Won’t Touch
John Chandler, manager of JR Rigging, says he has proof of structural flaws in the recently-completely Cairns Convention Centre that pose an ongoing risk to the public but the commission doesn’t want to know. Chandler is one of several employers interviewed by commission investigators who have commented on its bias but he is the first to back his allegations with a statutory declaration. He said he was interviewed by two commission investigators in December, 2001, and made a series of criminal allegations against big building companies. These included fraud, threatening behaviour, conspiracy and collusion, in an effort to supress legitimate concerns over construction standards. However, he said, it was only when he mentioned unions that investigators became "extraordinarily interested". Chandler told investigators how a union organiser had reported back industry gossip that a national building company was out to destroy him, sparking them to ask of the union official: "Was he threatening you? How was it said? Was that a threat?" "By contrast, when I mentioned the threat made to me by (Anonymous Company) they did not seem concerned. Nor were they concerned when I mentioned other threats made to me by other parties," Chandler declares. "My overall impression was that the investigators were much more concerned with hearing anything about the union than they were with large scale fraud and cover-ups by a major construction company." Chandler says that when he tendered documentation, including an engineer's report, the female investigator told him his story was "huge". But, when he rang the commission four months later, on March 18, he was told it had would not be investigating his allegations. Chandler said he was "stunned" to read Commissioner Cole's May statement that nobody was coming forward to offer evidence of wrong doing in the industry. In an echo of allegations levelled against the CFMEU in Sydney, Chandler claims the actions of a national builder cost him his business after a dozen years in which he completed rigging assignments on hospitals, schools and shopping centres throughout Queensland. His declaration highlights concerns that the Cole Royal Commission has jettisoned its terms of reference to become a "show trial" of the CFMEU and its members. Frustration Grows Meanwhile, NSW state secretary Andrew Ferguson says worker frustration over five weeks of partisan proceedings in Sydney are likely to result in industrial action when it returns next month. "The Commission has made it obvious that we can't leave our defence to lawyers and a handful of union officials. Members are in constant contact seeking an avenue for their frustrations over the bias they read about every day," Ferguson told Workers Online. "We gave this Commission every chance. We provided boxes and boxes of documented tax rorts, workers comp rip-offs and safety abuses. To this point there is no evidence of any of it being taken into account. "The CFMEU has participated and put the lid on calls for protest stoppages. All the evidence suggests we should reassess that position." His frustration is understandable. Green MLC Lee Rhiannon today called the Commission a "highly political tool of a ruthless federal government". Observers of the past five weeks would find it difficult to fault her analysis. The Commission, staffed by 135 fulltime workers, was established by Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott to investigate "innapropriate or illegal" activity across the building and construction industry. The role of counsel assisting has been central to the direction it has taken. These lawyers, earning $3800 a day, are supposed to present evidence to enable the commission to fulfill its terms of reference. Instead, they have limited their contributions to allegations of trade union impropriety. Many such claims have been read onto the record without any corroboration and in spite of specific denials from other witnesses. In preparing for the Sydney sessions, the commission took statements from over 100 NSW witnesses for the purpose of leading evidence. Not one was taken from a CFMEU member. Safety, tax rorts, workers comp rip-offs, phoenixing and the employment of illegal immigrants have barely got an airing. This, despite a written submission from the Australian Tax Office effectively backing CFMEU claims of rampant avoidance of tax and workers comp liabilities, along with widespread phoenixing. Some estimates put the cost of tax and workers comp avoidance to state and federal treasuries at a billion dollars annually. Ferguson has sat in the commission and watched his organisers having their characters denigrated on the basis of nothing more than unsubstantiated letters written six and seven years ago, then picked up the newspapers, especially the Sydney Morning Herald, to see the allegations in print. He has watched one union witness after another being badgered by counsel and curtly interrogated by the commissioner then seen employers levelling the allegations, including those who have admitted wrong-doing, getting kid-glove treatment and their misdemeanours glossed over. "One thing it is not," he says of the commission, "is an inquiry into the building industry. It has become a prosecution of one party, a show trial. "Tax payers are paying $60 million for this charade. They expect better and so do we." Illegals Arrested on Building Site Meanwhile, 15 suspected illegal immigrants working on a Waitara building site were arrested today. The employees of gyprock company, Modern Drywall, were taken into custody after a raid by officials from the Department of Immigration. "Still, the Cole Commission refuses to investigate the problem of illegal immigration in the construction industry," Ferguson said. "It's a massive issue and you have to wonder how much longer the commissioner can keep his head buried in the sand."
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