Labor鈥檚 new laws appointing an administrator with absolute dictatorial powers to run every branch of the Construction Forestry Maritime Employees Union is the most serious attack on a union in living memory, argues Sam Wainwright.
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International Labour Organisation (ILO)
As the government鈥檚 criminal case against Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) officials John Setka and Shaun Reardon ended in embarrassing collapse, unions called for the repeal of draconian secondary boycott laws.
Sympathy strikes are one of the most common forms of secondary boycott. They involve a union taking industrial action to force a company to cease trading with another company until the targeted company agrees to industrial demands. The law against secondary boycotts thus interferes with the right of workers to campaign collectively.
One key issue in the Australian Council of Trade Union's 鈥淐hange the Rules鈥 campaign is the right to strike.
We campaign for parliament to repeal all the penal powers against industrial action from Work Choices that are still in the Fair Work Act and then to enact the lawful right to strike. Full Stop.