The Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union yesterday attacked Labor's reasoning for keeping the Australian Building and Construction Commission, saying it was based on a "cracked and sinking foundation".
CFMEU construction chief Dave Noonan said his union and hundreds of thousands of building workers were entitled to be offended and disgusted.
Mr Noonan accused Kevin Rudd and his deputy, Julia Gillard, of "parroting nonsensical soundbites" in showing continued support for the ABCC by referring to "a tough cop on the beat" and "zero tolerance".
The Government, as promised during the election campaign, intends to keep the ABCC as a policing authority for the building industry until January 2010.
It is then to be absorbed into an umbrella organisation called Fair Work Australia, an umpire responsible for setting minimum wages and settling industrial disputes.
Ms Gillard gave guarantees on the ABCC's future before the election to appease concerns of the construction industry that its sudden abolition could see a return to old-style strikes and industrial lawlessness of the past.
She also guaranteed the tenure of ABCC chief John Lloyd until 2010.
But Mr Noonan yesterday accused the Government of allowing "taxpayer-funded ideologues" like Mr Lloyd and "his scaly sidekick Nigel Hadgkiss" to continue to equate workers' legitimate industrial activity with criminality.
"These are not Labor laws, they are John Howard's law," Mr Noonan said.
Maverick West Australian CFMEU leader Kevin Reynolds predicted yesterday that the fight would be taken up to the ABCC.
"It will come to a head," he said. "Workers are getting sick to death of not being able to take action over their conditions."
Mr Reynolds also yesterday likened trespass charges against his deputy, Joe McDonald, to "a drunk's charge".
He said that Mr McDonald did not drink alcohol, but charges against him were similar to "getting run out of a pub for being unruly".
Mr McDonald has had two trespass charges against him dismissed, but has up to five more pending.
Brad Norington, The Age
