Transport Union To Face Five Government Investigations

Sydney Morning Herald

Thursday September 27, 2007

Mark Davis Political Correspondent

THE Federal Government has asked virtually all of its industrial, tax and corporate regulators to investigate the Transport Workers Union over allegations about a multimillion-dollar union training fund.

The Minister for Workplace Relations, Joe Hockey, announced yesterday five separate federal investigations into the union fund, which collects contributions from trucking employers to pay for training of union members.

Mr Hockey said he had also written to the NSW Government calling for a police investigation into whether union officials had breached state anti-corruption laws.

And he asked the Premier, Morris Iemma, for investigations into potential breaches of state electoral and occupational health and safety laws.

Union members have alleged the union's training, education and industrial rights fund has not been properly accounted for and that the union's leadership negotiated a sweetheart pay deal with a NSW labour hire company which cut workers' wages.

Mr Hockey has said the Government has received additional information suggesting misuse of the training fund by the union, suggesting it might have been used for spending on political campaigns, and secret deals with employers.

But the transport union's federal and NSW secretary, Tony Sheldon, last night strenuously denied any impropriety over the training fund and accused the Government of playing politics.

"This is nothing more than a Spanish inquisition on the eve of the federal election," Mr Sheldon said. "Mr Hockey may as well have invited Interpol and Scotland Yard to join the union-bashing witch-hunt."

Mr Hockey said: "We take any allegations about the removal of workers' pay and conditions very seriously, whether they are directed at a company or union."

The transport union set up the fund some years ago. Under some of its collective agreements with trucking companies, the employer agrees to contribute 1 per cent of its payroll into the fund.

The collective agreements say the fund is to train transport workers in vocational and professional skills, occupational health and safety and industrial rights and to retrain and help find jobs for retrenched workers. AAP reports that up to 20,000 Victorian workers condemned the Federal Government's industrial laws during a protest march through central Melbourne yesterday. Workers and their families chanted for John Howard to resign and urged the Government to protect their children's futures from unfair workplace conditions.

© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald

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