Thursday, 23 June 2005 Federal Government funds union IR campaign The Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union will tonight donate $50,000 received from the Federal Government’s Building Industry Taskforce to the national industrial relations campaign. The CFMEU yesterday received the money in a costs ruling after a failed prosecution by the Taskforce was found to be “hopeless” and “without reasonable cause” by the Federal Court. CFMEU NSW Secretary Andrew Ferguson said he will tonight donate the full $50,000 amount to the ongoing union campaign to protect the rights of workers and the community from the Howard Governments planned attacks on the current industrial relations system. “This money is part of the $287,000 dollars of taxpayers’ money that the Building Industry Taskforce spent in a case described as ‘bizarre’ by the court, and lacking any legal merit,” he said. “We think it is only right that if the Howard Government is determined to waste tens of millions of dollars in an ideological attack on the CFMEU, without any legal grounds, that we redirect this money to be used campaigning for the rights of working people, especially the lowest paid and most disadvantaged in our community. “The Taskforce took the union and two officials to court over a dispute at the Lanskey Constructions site in Wollongong, based on the union’s response to serious health and safety issues on site, which was a view shared by the court. “In throwing the case out and awarding costs to the union, Justice Wilcox said ‘officials of unions whose members are working in an inherently dangerous place, such as a construction site, have an obligation to those members to take an interest in occupational health and safety issues and the adequacy of insurance arrangements affecting workers on site.’” Andrew Ferguson presentation to Unions NSW 6pm, Thursday 23 June 2005 LHMU Auditorium, 187 Thomas St, Haymarket Media contact: Tim Vollmer (CFMEU Media Officer) 0404 273 313 Andrew Ferguson (CFMEU NSW Sec.) 0412 511 994 [ more news ]