Union Blues (Transport Workers Union) - Sunday - Part1

A powerful trade union that is spearheading the fight against the Howard Government's Work Choices legislation is facing damaging claims from its own rank-and-file in the run-up to a Federal election that it has sold out its members to a labour hire firm.

A Sunday program investigation this weekend reveals the union boss personally signed the controversial deal.

The Union admits the agreement is now the subject of an internal investigation.

Union members affected tell Sunday: "The union we look to support and protect us is now the union we've got to protect ourselves against."

They claim the deal means workers could face pay cuts of around 30%. What angers them most is theri discovery that a separate, unregistered, contract between the Union and the company provides for substantial payments to be made into a shadowy union 'Training Fund.'

The union insist the payments into this fund are fully accounted for and above board.

But workers say the existence of such payments was previously expressly denied by the union. The lack of openness by the union leadership is fuelling perceptions that even the union now admits are fairly drawn.

Sunday reveals the payments go far beyond the one company. The union has received millions of dollars from employers into its training fund for more than a decade. Union members tell Sunday the fund should have been fully disclosed and accounted for. They are now demanding to know how the money has been spent.

The Union leadership is facing an rebellion in the ranks.

It is the scale and extent of these payments across an industry which shock the union's own members, who fear the payments could compromise the union's attitude to employers:

"We are not talking about a couple of hundred dollars or a couple of thousand dollars here. We're talking about millions. I think it's absolutely reprehensible."

Another senior official says: "They (the members) have found out about the fund and they're threatening to resign from the union. They feel they've been betrayed by the union."

And as a former organiser tells Sunday:

"We want the transparency returned. We want our union back. We want the Labor Party, Kevin Rudd, to find out why this is happening.

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News & Politics

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