After three decades of industrial disputes across Australia, the former Federal Government worked to reduce the number of disputes and to clean up the industrial relations systems in a number of industries. As part of this task, the Federal Government ordered a Royal Commission into one of the worst performing industries – the building and construction industry. At the time the Royal Commission commenced, almost 202 days per 1,000 employees were lost across Australia due to industrial disputes. These disputes threatened Australia’s economy and the livelihoods of many Australians.
At the time the Royal Commission commenced, the then-Prime Minister said that “over the past four years, the construction industry has produced more than half the total number of complaints about breach of freedom of association principals”. Under the Terms of Reference for the Commission, Justice Terence Cole QC was asked to investigate unlawful or inappropriate industrial or workplace practice as well as fraud, corruption, collusion or violence on building sites. He was also instructed to make recommendations based on his findings on how to improve the conduct of building industry participants.
During the course of the Royal Commission, Justice Cole heard testimony from building employees, building employers, unions and industry associations. The Commission heard a number of testimonies detailing evidence of endemic illegal conduct on building sites, from acts of violence against employers and employees to coercion (for example, limited industrial action in exchange for the payment of monies). Click here to read the findings from the Royal Commission.
Justice Cole handed down the findings from the Royal Commission on 26 and 27 March 2003 to the Australian Parliament. In the findings, Justice Cole stated that “(t)here is an urgent need for reform and cultural change” in the Victorian building and construction. He also stated that “(t)he rule of law has long since ceased to have any significant application within the Victorian building and construction industry”.
Justice Cole characterised Victoria’s building industry as having:
- Widespread disregard of enterprise bargaining and freedom of association provisions;
- Widespread use of inappropriate industrial pressure (and surrender to this pressure);
- Using OHS issues as a tool for industrial action;
- Strike action and the threat of strike action that is unlawful;
- Threatening and intimidating conduct; and,
- Widespread disregard for Right of Entry by union officials.
In the Final Report, Justice Cole was damning of the behaviour and conduct of building industry participants. In order to reestablish the rule of law in the building and construction industry, the Royal Commission handed down 212 Recommendations to the Federal Government, all of which urged an overhaul of the industrial tools relating to the construction sector.
Some of the recommendations include:
- A law to be established that is specific to the building and construction industry – to become the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act (BCII Act);
- The establishment of the Australian Building and Construction Commission;
- Prohibiting ‘pattern bargaining’;
- Prohibiting of industrial action unless it is protected industrial action; and,
- Freedom of association to be explicitly defined in the BCII Act and building industry participants to be free threat or intimidation to join a union or industry association.
Of these 212 Recommendations, the majority were implemented in part or in full by the previous Government.
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