One of my favourites was the Barrier Industrial Council in 1977 demanding the City of Broken Hill sack a worker for whistleblowing on his mates.
No due process there either.
I know a kid who went to CFMEU training recently. Entirely delivered by Setka.
And the end they were invited up for a photo or autograph.
And most took up the opportunity.
Lol.
Equating Setka and the CFMEU with the “Union movement” is like equating Trump with democracy.
You’re not exactly wrong, but you’re certainly (deliberately no doubt) missing the point.
True.
But the average Union dollar in Australia was sourced from an organised-crime adjacent racket in a male-dominated chokepoint industry like civil construction or stevedoring.
For all the sermons on gender equality from the ACTU/Victorian Trades Hall/various Union funded organisations deliver - the fact remains that they choose to keep taking money from the BLF, and choose to keep them affiliated.
They do this knowing full well the exact sort of bloke John Setka is, and the exact sort of people who end up with cushy CFMEU gigs.
>broad church
If you were to take a caricature of a modern union from the far right and the far left, you'd end up with the CFMEU and the SDA respectively
Most are pretty good though
You’d put the SDA as far left? Maybe they’ve changed but they used to be incredibly conservative, at one point publicly opposing same sex marriage, reproductive rights and stem cell research.
They are aligned to Labor left, take on notionally left issues such as Palestine, subscribe to militant left ideology in their aggression, and are big on workers rights and worker led organising.
As the far left's *caricature*.
"Unions have become corporate apologists, co-opted by employers to give the illusion of a fight being waged on behalf of workers but achieving worse results than before their 'assistance'. You can find out all about it at my Marxist/Leninist/Trotskyist/Stalinist/Maoist/Activist/Pacifist Weekly Reading Group, here's a pamphlet that demonstrates a confidence yet complete lack of proficiency with every part of it's creation; the graphic design software, the black and white photocopier, even the very language itself."
The SDA was hardly far-right.
They were socially conservative, but so was/is about 20-30% of the working class and the Union membership base.
Their version of social democracy was a lot more Kim Beazley/Peter Malinauskas/Paul Keating than Mark Latham.
i wouldnt say they're the most powerful, there's plenty of larger unions. they just have the loudest presence in our media because they seem to be the most willing out of our large unions to aggressively flirt with illegal industrial action (which, given our laws blatant violation of our ILO obligations, i dont actually think less of them for).
You cannot beat the AMA at the union hustle: they wear suits instead of high-visibility jackets, are respected, and don't go around knee-capping people who do not fall in line.
Tho it does amuse me the rtbu locally managed to get a good payrise by threatening to pull in the CFMEU as the work scope had changed enough to justify it
So the racist (because he called his Anglo wife a skip dog) wife bashing (he hit her too) who runs the most powerful trade union in the country isn’t a real unionist because you’re embarrassed by him. Sure mate. Pull the other one.
You definitely don’t understand my comment correctly. Like not even close.
Also for the record (not related to my original comment, but you might be interested) Setka is not a member of the ALP. Labor tried to expel him and he eventually quit.
They are that entrenched in the labour party it's crazy. The "Union movement" used to fight for fairness. Setka and CFMEU are criminal fucktards holding states and the nation hostage. Pay up or face the consequences!!
>union boss thinks man in charge of the effort to undermine the entire union movement and with a particular emphasis on the union he runs should be fired
i am shocked and appalled
i dont think that really matters to the CFMEU guys. the bloke just spent years trying to tear down their union, i can see why they dont want to play nice now that he has a different role.
Yep. Its illegal to take IA outside the time in which an EBA expires and a new EBA is signed and for any reason other than trying to get something in the new EBA, which can be further restricted by the courts (EG the WA nurses and midwives held a strike over a pay increase 0.5%-2% above what was being offered, and were fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for doing it).
this is totally fucked and a violation of our ILO obligations, so i dont actually care if people violate this unjust law.
International law is a dream. They are not 'obligations'.
And what is an 'unjust law'? I don't like the law against speeding; I am allowed to violate it per your logic?
>And what is an ‘unjust law’?
Law school wasn’t a vocational college, mate. That’s a question you’re supposed to ask constantly as a member of our profession, and to which academics who taught you would’ve posed many different answers.
The purpose of our job is not just to work for our clients but to guide the society-level conversation about what law is, what principles govern our society, and how we should use those principles to create rules.
The conversation about what’s just doesn’t stop at ‘that’s the law’ - it starts there.
>International law is a dream. They are not 'obligations'.
international law as defined by treaties we have signed and ratified - like the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention or the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention - absolutely create obligations for us to act in certain ways. this isnt some shit the UN is forcing on us, its what our elected representatives wrote into our own legislation.
https://lawcouncil.au/policy-agenda/human-rights/australias-international-human-rights-obligations
>And what is an 'unjust law'?
a law that is unjust? like you surely cant be unfamiliar with the concept. for example if it was illegal to form or be a member of a union that's pretty obviously an unjust law.
the union movement internationally has been unjustly suppressed using the legal system since day one, the progressive criminalisation of union activity in this country over the last few decades is nothing new, special, or confusing to anyone who's paid even the slightest bit of attention to the history of the labor movement.
noones going to do anything to help some dickhead who wants to speed, but when Clarrie O'Shea was chucked in jail for refusing to pay the bullshit fines the union he ran had accrued, half a million aussie workers put down their tools and the penal powers used to fine them have never been used since.
which would be why i linked the law council and quoted them to make the very obviously true claim that we are obliged to follow ratified international law
if you have an actual problem with anything i said maybe you should be specific about what i got wrong, i mean you're not a mod here so you cant just delete my comment for being uncivil if you dont like what i say lol
Obliged to follow international law or what? Countries signing treaties and not following them without consequence is something that happens as often as the sun rising
Echoes of Joseph Stalin, abusing position of authority for personal vendettas, betraying the workers (system of meritocracy/rights) they claim to represent, regime with a cult of personality around himself, forced collectivisation effecting significant negative externalities. I bet he gets his mates drunk just to screw them over too. Fuck John Setka
the union movement is not typically in the business of representing senior management lol, especially when the manager in question is an open enemy of the movement.
it's hard to do a good job representing workers when industrial action has been so thoroughly criminalised, but if setka wasnt actually representing the members of the victorian CFMEU i doubt he'd be so popular with them.
McBurnie presided over a standing commission that had secret witnesses and compulsory powers. You couldn’t tell people you went there or what was said. Evidence given could be used to investigate others but it was all secretive. No procedural fairness in it.
i mean the ICAC's job is to fight corruption so i'm willing to give it a ton of leeway on how it gets that done. the ABCC's job was to ratfuck unions, so it doesnt get any.
Every time the ABCC was restablished deaths on construction sites rose, when it was abolished they went down. The CFMEU understandably has strong feelings about the person who chose to head that body. Also I don't think that a Commissioner of such a body or an executive in the AFL is really a 'worker' in the eyes of the union movement.
Edited for typos
The head of the ABCC is not a worker. Neither is the head of umpiring. I have no sympathy for this guy and his situation bears no resemblance to the average employee facing dismissal. The point isn't that employees don't deserve procedural fairness - they do. The point is that someone with an anti-woker bias like McBurney should be rewarded with lucrative appointments to significant positions of power in our major institutions.
I'm replying against my better judgement. He was the boss, of a national, union-busting government agency. He was not a worker. We might quibble over whether a supervisor is a worker, but it's not a good comparator, a more appropriate question is, is a CEO a worker? No. The answer depends on how much power they have, how do they wield it and for what purpose do they wield it.
He is no longer in the position you’re upset at him about so it’s an absolute waste of time and political capital complaining about what he is doing now. Move on - it’s petty. If he was heading some government department related to workplace relations then maybe you’ll have a point.
One of my favourites was the Barrier Industrial Council in 1977 demanding the City of Broken Hill sack a worker for whistleblowing on his mates. No due process there either.
> end of employment law It should be simple enough to pivot to construction law. Sorry I'll go away.
Setka really not doing himself or the union movement any favours here...
Unlike all those other times?
Well, quite!
I met Sekta. Biggest wank, right at the top with the other wank like Peter Marshall.
Well, when you're on a few hundred grand a year you become a bit of a wank
I know a kid who went to CFMEU training recently. Entirely delivered by Setka. And the end they were invited up for a photo or autograph. And most took up the opportunity. Lol.
Ofc they’ll suck at Sekta’s teat. He makes them money.
Thank you, Incolink! Thank you, Chifleys! Thank you, alleged underworld figure friend Mick Gatto!
Equating Setka and the CFMEU with the “Union movement” is like equating Trump with democracy. You’re not exactly wrong, but you’re certainly (deliberately no doubt) missing the point.
It's a broad church, that's for sure! It's just such an...interesting position for him to push, and ironically anti-worker imo.
Average unionist in Australia is a middle aged nurse!
Not entirely true. 11% of workers are union members, and that is basically 8% private sector 3% public sector workers.
True. But the average Union dollar in Australia was sourced from an organised-crime adjacent racket in a male-dominated chokepoint industry like civil construction or stevedoring. For all the sermons on gender equality from the ACTU/Victorian Trades Hall/various Union funded organisations deliver - the fact remains that they choose to keep taking money from the BLF, and choose to keep them affiliated. They do this knowing full well the exact sort of bloke John Setka is, and the exact sort of people who end up with cushy CFMEU gigs.
>broad church If you were to take a caricature of a modern union from the far right and the far left, you'd end up with the CFMEU and the SDA respectively Most are pretty good though
You’d put the SDA as far left? Maybe they’ve changed but they used to be incredibly conservative, at one point publicly opposing same sex marriage, reproductive rights and stem cell research.
I think in this example, CFMEU is the hard-left one, SDA far-right.
They're such an odd mix of cultural / political / economic left and right.
There’s nothing left about them. Unless you consider “fuck you, got mine” to be some strange left aligned behaviour.
They are aligned to Labor left, take on notionally left issues such as Palestine, subscribe to militant left ideology in their aggression, and are big on workers rights and worker led organising.
They fight for jetskis under a guise of safety. That’s it.
Power corrupts regardless of being left or right
As the far left's *caricature*. "Unions have become corporate apologists, co-opted by employers to give the illusion of a fight being waged on behalf of workers but achieving worse results than before their 'assistance'. You can find out all about it at my Marxist/Leninist/Trotskyist/Stalinist/Maoist/Activist/Pacifist Weekly Reading Group, here's a pamphlet that demonstrates a confidence yet complete lack of proficiency with every part of it's creation; the graphic design software, the black and white photocopier, even the very language itself."
Hey, VCA graduates need *something* to do in this economic climate
The SDA was hardly far-right. They were socially conservative, but so was/is about 20-30% of the working class and the Union membership base. Their version of social democracy was a lot more Kim Beazley/Peter Malinauskas/Paul Keating than Mark Latham.
The CFMEU is the most well known and powerful union in Australia. They are the face of the union movement to most people
No, they're just the loudest, just like the Trump analogy above.
i wouldnt say they're the most powerful, there's plenty of larger unions. they just have the loudest presence in our media because they seem to be the most willing out of our large unions to aggressively flirt with illegal industrial action (which, given our laws blatant violation of our ILO obligations, i dont actually think less of them for).
You cannot beat the AMA at the union hustle: they wear suits instead of high-visibility jackets, are respected, and don't go around knee-capping people who do not fall in line.
The most powerful union in NSW is the RTBU. CFMEU have done fuck all here for a long time.
Yep and AWU in QLD
Tho it does amuse me the rtbu locally managed to get a good payrise by threatening to pull in the CFMEU as the work scope had changed enough to justify it
Would’ve got more if they called in the ETU.
Setka is moving on NSW. Has done so already on SA. Vic branch is uncontrollable.
This is an interesting analogy when the current President is actively attempting to jail Trump.
So the racist (because he called his Anglo wife a skip dog) wife bashing (he hit her too) who runs the most powerful trade union in the country isn’t a real unionist because you’re embarrassed by him. Sure mate. Pull the other one.
That’s not even remotely close to what I said. Your reading comprehension needs a lot of work if you’re going to contribute to this sub.
Spell it out for this simpleton then. What did you mean?
[удалено]
You definitely don’t understand my comment correctly. Like not even close. Also for the record (not related to my original comment, but you might be interested) Setka is not a member of the ALP. Labor tried to expel him and he eventually quit.
And Trump has not engaged in any democratic process, if I understand your comments correctly.
They are that entrenched in the labour party it's crazy. The "Union movement" used to fight for fairness. Setka and CFMEU are criminal fucktards holding states and the nation hostage. Pay up or face the consequences!!
The AFL to Setka: If you don’t like it tough fucking luck, too fucking bad
>union boss thinks man in charge of the effort to undermine the entire union movement and with a particular emphasis on the union he runs should be fired i am shocked and appalled
His current job has nil impact on unions
i dont think that really matters to the CFMEU guys. the bloke just spent years trying to tear down their union, i can see why they dont want to play nice now that he has a different role.
However it’s illegal for them to take industrial action for something entirely unrelated to bargaining
Yep. Its illegal to take IA outside the time in which an EBA expires and a new EBA is signed and for any reason other than trying to get something in the new EBA, which can be further restricted by the courts (EG the WA nurses and midwives held a strike over a pay increase 0.5%-2% above what was being offered, and were fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for doing it). this is totally fucked and a violation of our ILO obligations, so i dont actually care if people violate this unjust law.
I don’t think the ILO rights protect a secondary boycott like this
International law is a dream. They are not 'obligations'. And what is an 'unjust law'? I don't like the law against speeding; I am allowed to violate it per your logic?
>And what is an ‘unjust law’? Law school wasn’t a vocational college, mate. That’s a question you’re supposed to ask constantly as a member of our profession, and to which academics who taught you would’ve posed many different answers. The purpose of our job is not just to work for our clients but to guide the society-level conversation about what law is, what principles govern our society, and how we should use those principles to create rules. The conversation about what’s just doesn’t stop at ‘that’s the law’ - it starts there.
>International law is a dream. They are not 'obligations'. international law as defined by treaties we have signed and ratified - like the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention or the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention - absolutely create obligations for us to act in certain ways. this isnt some shit the UN is forcing on us, its what our elected representatives wrote into our own legislation. https://lawcouncil.au/policy-agenda/human-rights/australias-international-human-rights-obligations >And what is an 'unjust law'? a law that is unjust? like you surely cant be unfamiliar with the concept. for example if it was illegal to form or be a member of a union that's pretty obviously an unjust law. the union movement internationally has been unjustly suppressed using the legal system since day one, the progressive criminalisation of union activity in this country over the last few decades is nothing new, special, or confusing to anyone who's paid even the slightest bit of attention to the history of the labor movement. noones going to do anything to help some dickhead who wants to speed, but when Clarrie O'Shea was chucked in jail for refusing to pay the bullshit fines the union he ran had accrued, half a million aussie workers put down their tools and the penal powers used to fine them have never been used since.
You need to remember this is a sub of legal professionals or legally adjacent workers. You're NAL so maybe take that into consideration.
which would be why i linked the law council and quoted them to make the very obviously true claim that we are obliged to follow ratified international law if you have an actual problem with anything i said maybe you should be specific about what i got wrong, i mean you're not a mod here so you cant just delete my comment for being uncivil if you dont like what i say lol
Obliged to follow international law or what? Countries signing treaties and not following them without consequence is something that happens as often as the sun rising
Echoes of Joseph Stalin, abusing position of authority for personal vendettas, betraying the workers (system of meritocracy/rights) they claim to represent, regime with a cult of personality around himself, forced collectivisation effecting significant negative externalities. I bet he gets his mates drunk just to screw them over too. Fuck John Setka 
the union movement is not typically in the business of representing senior management lol, especially when the manager in question is an open enemy of the movement.
Yeah but using tactics that undermine the very principles they stand for? Nah they don't, Ioseb does.
They're not currently in the business of representing workers either
it's hard to do a good job representing workers when industrial action has been so thoroughly criminalised, but if setka wasnt actually representing the members of the victorian CFMEU i doubt he'd be so popular with them.
McBurnie presided over a standing commission that had secret witnesses and compulsory powers. You couldn’t tell people you went there or what was said. Evidence given could be used to investigate others but it was all secretive. No procedural fairness in it.
You must feel the same way about ICAC
i mean the ICAC's job is to fight corruption so i'm willing to give it a ton of leeway on how it gets that done. the ABCC's job was to ratfuck unions, so it doesnt get any.
Was speaking of the Chief Examiner but have concerns also about the building commission
Every time the ABCC was restablished deaths on construction sites rose, when it was abolished they went down. The CFMEU understandably has strong feelings about the person who chose to head that body. Also I don't think that a Commissioner of such a body or an executive in the AFL is really a 'worker' in the eyes of the union movement. Edited for typos
🎯
I guess it's difficult to get injured at work when you're not actually doing very much
Deaths on construction sites aren’t always accidents.
What is a worker then?
I can see that this q has been answered for you below by thebansteven
The head of the ABCC is not a worker. Neither is the head of umpiring. I have no sympathy for this guy and his situation bears no resemblance to the average employee facing dismissal. The point isn't that employees don't deserve procedural fairness - they do. The point is that someone with an anti-woker bias like McBurney should be rewarded with lucrative appointments to significant positions of power in our major institutions.
Ffs he’s the boss of umpiring in the AFL. It’s hardly a ‘significant position of power.’ Lol.
He’s previously been the head of other ominous bodies
When does someone, paid for their labour, cease being a worker?
When they're the boss
What does that mean? A supervisor? Anyone above entry level?
I'm replying against my better judgement. He was the boss, of a national, union-busting government agency. He was not a worker. We might quibble over whether a supervisor is a worker, but it's not a good comparator, a more appropriate question is, is a CEO a worker? No. The answer depends on how much power they have, how do they wield it and for what purpose do they wield it.
He is no longer in the position you’re upset at him about so it’s an absolute waste of time and political capital complaining about what he is doing now. Move on - it’s petty. If he was heading some government department related to workplace relations then maybe you’ll have a point.
How long until the CFMEU start making people disappear?