John Passant, thanks for this interesting article.

What's the betting that Washington experiences a Clarrie O'Shea moment? The lookalike Rudd Government won't want any embarrassment from this.

If I am at work and I leave with everyone else at work to attend a BBQ during work hour, most of us will receive councilling or be fire

It is time the Unions join the real world

Building time have been slashed by on average 30% in NSW, since union can no longer hold up work. This is good for builders, it is good for home/office buyer, it is good for society

Yeah, I've got to agree with dovif2 on this one: my employer cannot come in to the client site and just take people out for lunch. It has to be negotiated timewise (read: booked in advance), must be done in a way which doesn't impact the delivery of what we're there to do. and the client needs to be managed.

If unions want to throw a BBQ, that's fine. But it shouldn't be done in a way which disrupts what the building company is trying to achieve. Book it in advance, let everyone (including the client) know what's happening and manage the situation.

If they don't do that and someone get's thrown in gaol, then so be it. They'll get no sympathy from me.

dovif2 & BN

Have you missed the point? Six months gaol for holding a stop-work meeting seems excessive to me and a throwback to an era of master/servant relationships long ago rejected by civilised societies. You don't think you're out of kilter with contemporary thinking on industrial relations? Even in 'the real world' where negotiation between workers and the bosses produces better bottom lines?

By the way dovif2, where can we verify your claim that building time has been slashed by on average 30% in NSW? You will document that, won't you? And show the causal relationship between the two events?

First, Dovif2 and BN, this was a BBQ in the lunch hour - since when has it been a problem to go to lunch? Next the scale of the punishment is immense in comparison with the supposed crime. These laws, like the anti terrorism ones, are much worse than the things they are supposed to protect us from. There is no way we currently live in a free democracy. It is time for Rudd and his minions to change these repressive laws or we might as well be living in a third world dictatorship.

From both the union movement and the ALP I had hopes we could see an end to this law.
I can never convince anti union or just the uniformed that this is wrong.
I do not ever claim some in the movement, even now, act in a silly thugs and mugs way.
In fact some bought workchoices down on us all.
But this is not about a bar b q.
It is quite true the thugs and mugs here are those charged with policing the industry.
That refusing to answer questions about mates will send a man to prison.
That once charged and found guilty no other way exists.
Julia Gillard came from a union lawyer background.
She came from the left faction.
Yet she seems to have taken a seat that lets her forget her past.
I do not want lawlessness in the industry, but do not fuel this fire, do not send this man to prison.
The federal Labor party front bench should settle in and watch the impending train wreck in NSW local government elections next month.
Then remember those who man the polling booths in NSW come federal election time , will not be there for the state election.
The party has distanced itself from its membership and the union movement.
Tell the 19 year old man on a major construction site I see today he is right to be a low paid[$9] an hour cheap worker alongside a man 4 months older on $24 and hour doing the same work.
Unions are if fair dinkum, looking only for a fair go the building industry task group little more than madness.