Building workers: Jail threat

Construction workers face jail if they refuse to attend secret interrogations by investigators from the Howard Government's building industry commission.

As it was confirmed that Cowra workers could be legally sacked and re-employed on lower wages, the ACTU said workers on the Perth rail project, who face fines for a strike in February, could be jailed unless they attended secret hearings about the industrial action.

ACTU secretary Greg Combet said the workers faced jail if they did not attend the hearings or if they did not answer questions put by investigators from the Australian Building and Construction Commission. The workers are prevented from disclosing details of the hearings to family members and have to be represented by separate lawyers.

"It's an extreme denial of basic civil rights," Mr Combet said. "This is David Hicks-style treatment. It denies them the right to silence and to protect themselves from self-incrimination.

"Under threat of being thrown in jail, you have to incriminate yourself. That is a breach of one of the fundamental democratic and human rights that people have had in democratic countries."

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