Abolish the ABCC and Drop Proceedings against the 55 Liberty OneSteel Workers.

The Australian Building and Construction Commission has started Federal court proceedings against the AWU, an AWU Workplace Organiser and 55 rank and file members. The ABCC is alleging that more the 55 individual workers from Liberty OneSteel took unlawful industrial action last year by attending an ACTU Change the Rules rally. The affected members work in a steel manufacturing plant in Noble Park, Victoria’s manufacturing heartland.

That the ABCC can go after steelworkers who are neither building nor construction workers just goes to show that the ABCC is a politically motivated agency not about improving the construction industry.

We need safer workplaces, not fines. No-one should die at work but construction workers are being killed on the job and the ABCC spends its time on politically motivated fines for workers they say attended a rally.

The ABCC is a hopelessly politicised, biased and compromised agency that is acting outside its jurisdiction and abusing its power. It must be abolished in the interests of democracy.

These are unjust laws, these laws don’t protect Australian workers, and they don’t protect construction workers. The ABCC has to go.

Authorised by Ben Davis, State Secretary, 685 Spencer Street West Melbourne VIC 3003.