#auspol #CFMEU #Labor #union Comrade Sue Bolton on Facebook: "I am sick of the hypocrisy and double standards in the coverage of the allegations against the CFMEU and the Nine media's ïnvestigation" into the CFMEU. While I am not a member of the CFMEU and have never worked in the construction industry, I am aware that union officials and delegates and rank and file workers often have to deal with intimidation, threats and actual violence as part of defending workers in an incredibly dangerous industry. When the Builders Labourers Federation was deregistered, the death and accident rate in the industry skyrocketed. I can't comment on the current allegations because I don't know any of the circumstances. But it does seem strange that the journalists didn't target bosses who employ members of criminal gangs to intimidate workers into not reporting serious OHS issues in the industry. Why? There have been occasions when I know the CFMEU has tried to stop bosses employing bikie gangs to intimidate workers into not reporting serious health and safety issues. In July 2020, two young CFMEU officials arrived at a building site in Toorak Rd Hawthorn. They were there to check on a significant health and safety issue. They were outside the site filling in their paperwork when they were blindsided and jumped by 6-7 company employees. One of the officials was knocked unconscious when he was struck on the face with a metal bar or a piece of wood, before being kicked while on the ground. One of the organisers lost his eye in the attack and has still has a smashed cheekbone as a result of the attack. The developer of the site was the developer who illegally demolished the heritage listed Corkman Pub in Carlton. There are many people unionists on the left who have opinions on what the CFMEU should or shouldn't be doing and their tactics at different times, but the way in which these allegations have been raised in such a one-sided way makes me smell a rat. I suspect it is a payback to the bosses for the abolition of the Australian Building and Construction Commission which also looked at so-called corruption in the building unions but never looked into the corruption of the bosses. When I last looked at the ABCC's cases against the union, they were mostly for taking strike action, not for corruption at all. I also suspect that this is about the ALP taking control of the CFMEU. While the CFMEU is affiliated with the ALP and has been too involved in some of the factional politics of the ALP, it has also been prepared to speak out against the ALP when the ALP is supporting anti-worker positions. This is better than a lot of unions that go completely silent when the ALP is in government. We also have to be very careful about the Victorian ALP government using the allegations to to introduce extra anti-association laws. When these laws, known as anti-bikie laws, were introduced in NSW & Qld, they led to many innocent people being arrested. It led to motorbike enthusiasts who were not connected to any bikie gang, being harassed." source: https://www.facebook.com/sue.bolton.752/posts/pfbid0vww8ke46VvYJqB