Labor’s federal governing body has voted to suspend the construction branch of the CFMEU from the New South Wales, Victorian, South Australian and Tasmanian branches of the party “until further notice”.
The decision came as union boss Sally McManus said it could take years to restore the CFMEU after allegations of criminal elements within the union’s construction arm.
While the suspension continues, the ALP will not accept any affiliation fees or any donations for any branch of the Labor party from the suspended branches, which will also lose their right to participate in party processes.
If the decision is made to place more than the Victorian branch of the CFMEU into administration, the executive “will consider extending the suspension of affiliation to other branches”.
“The number one job of any union and its officials is to look after its members,” the federal executive said in a statement. “The reported behaviour is the complete opposite of this.”
Earlier on Thursday, the Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary said they had “no idea” of the union’s alleged infiltration and said she and the union leadership would “do what’s necessary” with the CFMEU.
“After an administrator is appointed, and there’s new elections and a new leadership, there’s proper processes put in place to make sure that’s the case, we’ll want to satisfy ourselves, so we’ll interrogate that,” McManus said.
“Unions are democratically run organisations and should be, and that [new leadership] should happen as soon as that union is in a position to govern itself.”
McManus told ABC radio RN “we know what we stand for”.
“We stand for the fact that union members deserve a union free of corruption and free of intimidation, and that everyone deserves dignity at work. We are the people who stand up for the little guy. We are not standover people. And so what will be hard about it is who we’re taking on, obviously we are now taking on powerful forces.”
Asked if she was worried for her personal safety, McManus said that had been raised with her by others but she would “not flinch” in her response to the crisis.
McManus, and the ACTU president Michele O’Neil, have called on the CFMEU to cooperate with the government decision to empower the Fair Work Commission general manager Murray Furlong to appoint an independent administrator to oversee the union.
There has been pushback from within the union, particularly from the Queensland branch secretary Michael Ravbar, who accused the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, of “opening the gates of hell for workers” by taking the administration of the CFMEU out of the union leaders’ hands.
McManus said Ravbar was behaving “a bit like Custer’s last stand” but the ACTU leadership would stay the course.
The government has said it will back Furlong in any decision he makes regarding the union’s administration and will change legislation to enable the work to happen if necessary.
McManus said on Wednesday she believed the union could emerge stronger, citing the example of the Health Services Union, which was placed into administration in 2012 after allegations of financial mismanagement.
On Thursday she said that some within the CFMEU had been “putting their own personal interests before the rest of the movement for quite a while” but the ACTU leadership was unaware of the allegations.
“We had no idea of … the alleged infiltration by criminal elements … we did not know this.”
Anthony Albanese said the government had acted fast in addressing the allegations.
“What we’ve done is to make sure that we’ve taken the strongest possible action,” the prime minister said.
“Deregistration would result in the union still being able to operate but without being regulated properly. We want to make sure that we stamp out corruption, that we take action that’s effective.
“ … What we need to make sure is that we get this right and take tough action, not just tough rhetoric with no action, which is what we saw from the former government.”
On Wednesday the federal workplace relations minister Tony Burke said he had written to the AFP commissioner asking the AFP to investigate the allegations raised by the Nine network and to work in tandem with state police investigations.
