Union heavyweight Joe McDonald is facing fresh legal proceedings from the building watchdog for encouraging workers to stop work at a CBD construction site last month.
The new proceedings follows Mr McDonald's appearance in the Magistrates Court yesterday where he pleaded guilty to three separate trespassing charges dating as early as 2007. He will be sentenced next week.
Today, the first hearing will take place from a proceeding filed in the Federal Court of Perth late last month by the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).
The ABCC allege Mr McDonald and CFMEU officer Michael Buchan visited and addressed workers at the Diploma Construction (WA) Pty Ltd site on 915 Hay Street in Perth across several days last month.
It is alleged that both Messrs McDonald and Buchan encouraged workers to leave the site for a three day period, with employees of nine contractors heeding to the CFMEU's direction.
The ABCC said shortly after another address by both union men, Mr McDonald raised several safety issues with Diploma, which claim one of the issues had been dealt with two days before.
The other safety concerns did not pose any imminent risk to employee safety and "could have been resolved by following the dispute procedures in the relevant agreement", the ABCC said.
Subsequent to the discussions, employees of five subcontractors stopped work.
The ABCC allege the CFMEU contravened a section of the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act 2005 and filed proceedings in the Federal Court.
The maximum penalties for a contravention are $22,000 for an individual and $110,000 for an organisation.
The ABCC added it was seeking each respondent pay for damages suffered to Diploma as a result of the employees stopping work, under a separate section of the Act.
