In the lead-up to the last Victorian state election, unions, especially the United Firefighters Union, were premier Daniel Andrews’s especially loyal boot-boys. It was all a neat little quid pro quo, of course: Andrews had bullied the state’s revered volunteer firefighter organisation, the Country Fire Authority, into submitting to a takeover by the solidly-unionised, city-based professional brigades.
Despite massive protests by CFA volunteers, the union thugs got their way – and they made sure to pay the Andrews Labor government back handsomely, come election time. Union members dressed up in their firefighter gear and flooded Melbourne suburbs with door-knockers.
It turns out that some handsome rewards are flowing back into the union bosses’ pockets.
Australia’s highest paid union leader, United Firefighters Union secretary Peter Marshall received $470,280 last financial year, $51,000 more than the previous 12 months, and well over double the amount paid annually to ACTU secretary Sally McManus.
Disclosure statements filed with the government’s union regulator show CFMEU Victorian construction division secretary John Setka received $268,104 over 12 months, a 16 per cent or $38,262 rise on the $229,842 he declared the previous year.
It’s nice to know that not everybody’s doing it tough during the Chinese flu pandemic.
In fact, for all their ranting about “the bosses”, it seems the union leaders are determined to live a lifestyle funded more like a top-hatted capitalist lap-dog than a hard-scrabble prole.
The highest individual annual remuneration disclosed to the Registered Organisations Commission was by former Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief Mark Stone, who was paid $506,366 in the 2019-20 financial year, having left the position at the end of 2019.
Pharmacy Guild of Australia national president George Tambassis received $394,720 last financial year, a rise of almost $6000, while Aged and Community Services Australia secretary Patrica Sparrow received $323,025.
Marshall and Setka are far from the only union leaders raking in the cash. But none of the other state leaders come close to the piles of loot being shovelled into Victorian unionists’ maws.
Dave Noonan, the national secretary of the CFMEU’s construction and general division, received $279,491 in the 12 months to last March, up from $223,295 in the previous year, a rise of $56,000. His divisional deputy, Nigel Davies, received $245,867 while a second deputy, Andrew Sutherland, who is also the construction division’s South Australian branch secretary, received $250,725.
Rita Mallia, the NSW president of the CFMEU construction division, declared $316,276 for the 12 months to last March.
In fact, the union bosses are making bank at a much higher rate than the workers they represent.
Members of the CFMEU’s construction division have traditional[ly] secured agreements that deliver annual 5 per cent pay rises. Recent deals in NSW between major builders and the union saw annual increases of 3-5 per cent.
The Australian
Compare that to John Setka’s 16% pay rise, and Marshall’s 11% raise.
Somebody’s making a lot of filthy lucre in Dan Andrews’s state of grubby union deals – and it’s not the workers.
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