The process to clean up the CFMEU following criminal allegations could take years, the secretary of the peak union body says, as Labor weighs up whether to suspend donations from the group.
The CFMEU’s construction division has come under fire after allegations of corrupt conduct and organised crime links, with the Fair Work Commission set to appoint an independent administrator to the union.
Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus said processes to put in new leadership and restore the union would take time.
When asked on ABC Radio how long it would take, Ms McManus said it would be “probably years” before it took place.
“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,” she 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, and has to be after the criminal elements are kicked out.”
The ACTU on Wednesday moved to suspend the construction division of the union until it could demonstrate it was free from criminal elements.
Ms McManus said she was unaware of the allegations surrounding the CFMEU, with the union on the fringe of the ACTU.
She said the former Victorian head of the CFMEU John Setka, who resigned from the position after the allegations, had been against the ACTU.
“John Setka hates our guts, he hates my guts, (president Michele O’Neill’s) guts,” she said.
“For the last five years, John Setka’s union has been isolated from the ACTU. We had no idea of … the alleged infiltration by criminal elements, we thought he did not uphold union principles and that he was someone who pursued vengeance.”
Ms McManus also said she had been warned of threats to her personal safety after previously going after the CFMEU.
“A few people have raised that with me. I’ll tell you this. We will do what’s necessary. I will do what’s necessary. The union leadership will do what’s necessary, we will not flinch,” she said.
It comes as Labor’s national executive will meet later on Thursday to determine whether it will continue to take donations
Various state Labor governments have also moved to ice their affiliations and halt donations.
Agriculture Minister Murray Watt said he was confident the national executive would move to suspend donations from the construction arm.
“The ALP has an interest in making sure that donations we receive aren’t tainted from infiltration from criminal gangs which seems to be occurring here so I would firmly support that action by the national executive,” he told the ABC.
ACTU President Michele O’Neil said the CFMEU needed to be cleaned up.
“I’ve been shocked by what we’ve seen over the last four or five days,” she told Nine’s Today show on Thursday when asked it she had heard any talk or rumours about the union’s conduct.
But Independent federal MP Zoe Daniels, who holds a seat in Melbourne, said no one was overly surprised by the allegations surrounding the Victorian branch.
“Anyone who had any sort of weather eye on what was going on in the CFMEU wouldn’t have been particularly surprised,” she told Today.
The CFMEU argues the move will strip tens of thousands of workers of effective representation.
Business groups have welcomed the suspensions and administration announcements while the federal opposition has called for the union’s deregistration rather than employing an administrator.
Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor reiterated calls for the building and construction sector watchdog to be reinstated, saying the steps to place the CFMEU into administration were not enough.
“I seriously doubt that anyone can deal with the CFMEU in its current form, because at the end of the day, it’s rotten to the core,” he told ABC Radio.
By Andrew Brown and Dominic Giannini in Canberra
