Unions expose 'Work Partners'

Staff at union recruitment company Work Partners are threatening to strike and have taken legal action.

The National Union of Workers has applied to Fair Work Australia on behalf of the staff to conduct a ballot to take industrial action at the company.

The NUW has lodged a dispute notice with the tribunal in a bid to speed up the payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars in superannuation it claims the company owes to current and former staff.

A range of unions pay Work Partners, run by former ALP activist Stuart McGill, to recruit thousands of members in workplaces.

ACTU secretary Jeff Lawrence last week demanded the unions cut ties with the company after it was revealed that on top of owing superannuation entitlements, Work Partners had outsourced Australian jobs overseas and devised plans to set up a call centre in The Philippines, a country with a history of repressing workers.

CEPU national president Len Cooper said last night his union had decided to review its relationship with Work Partners, particularly as the union was campaigning against telecommunications jobs in Australia being outsourced to The Philippines.

"The union's committee of management decided the matter of offshoring of jobs and the proper payment of entitlements to all employees are fundamental issues for the union whichever private-sector company we deal with," Mr Cooper said.

Mr McGill claims he is "catching up" on the superannuation payments, but NUW organiser Godfrey Moase said the staff were frustrated at the "continued postponement" of the payments.

"Members have told me they do not appreciate being made involuntary investors of the company," Mr Moase said.

"Members felt they could not continue to live with the uncertainty; that they could not continue to live with the risk of carrying all responsibility for whether their superannuation, and other minimum lawful entitlements, get paid."