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Cast

TOM LOCKWOOD - Programmer

BLAIR WIGLEY - Boss

EMMA KINGDON - Bosses Boss

YVETTE NASH - Bosses Bosses Boss

SARAH MITCHELL - Human Resources

SALLY MCMANUS - Bosses Bosses Bosses Boss

LAURA BOEHM - Industrial Officer at Sally McManuses union

VARIOUS COMRADES - 1 thru 10

FADE IN:

INT. EMMA KINGDON’S OFFICE, 2025-05-20

Towards the end of a long conversation, it becomes increasingly obvious that Emma Kingdon is frustrated.

TOM LOCKWOOD

…on the one hand, I can have conversations with Blair surrounding prioritizing my work, which we do every day, or I can kind of ignore Blair and do the stuff that I believe is a priority from our discussions in November and I can kinda go away and form my own priority list.

EMMA KINGDON

I feel like that with the work that you’re given and these things, you could either work towards them, or you could have conversations with me and Blair about how you prioritize them. Like, I don’t think it’s about… I think that is our responsibility of engaging when we have a dynamic space where we have multiple priorities about how we tackle them.

TOM LOCKWOOD

But I’m trying to kinda understand, are those daily conversations that I have with Blair about priorities, is there some element of those that don’t set my priorities?

EMMA KINGDON

If you’re saying, “Well, I have these other things,” I would get from you real concrete examples of how you went back and had conversations with Blair about how you prioritize the work with other things that were coming in. It was kind of this building, let that kind of prioritize happening, and then you got really frustrated. And then at the end of the election, when people are volunteering and it’s, like, really important time, you…

EMMA KINGDON

…you know, didn’t go to your volunteer shifts and-

TOM LOCKWOOD

Yeah, yeah. No, I, um, I have a hernia.

EMMA KINGDON

Yeah.

TOM LOCKWOOD

Yeah.

TOM LOCKWOOD

Um, and I found out, like, right before the election.

EMMA KINGDON

Yeah.

TOM LOCKWOOD

Um, Yeah.

EMMA KINGDON

I’m sorry to hear that…but I think there is a communication challenge.

TOM LOCKWOOD

I agree.

EMMA KINGDON

And I think you need to work on it.

Introduction

I started writing up the story of my time at the ACTU a few days ago, but I hit 40 pages and realized what I was doing wasn’t working, so I’ve started again. I had two great years at Sally McManuses ACTU and was promoted during them, but unfortunately I worked there for three. In that time there were two EBAs, neither of which was made public, neither of which lived up to the lofty promises the ACTU made again and again in its press releases, which in negotiation the workers were threatened with job cuts in a time of growth, and which Sally McManus and the rest of the executive were not bound by.

When I learned there were some issues with project management of technical projects at the ACTU (I worked there as a software developer), I raised this with the bosses. In trying to determine her expectations, Emma Kingdon (now with the CFMEU National office) brought up my non-attendance at supposedly voluntary hand out sessions for the Federal election - two of which I hadn’t attended because of a medical issue she had no idea about. Based on my experience Blair Wigley, Emma Kingdon and Yvette Nash are seriously deficient when it comes to managing technical projects and affiliates and unionists should closely examine any projects undertaken under their watch.

The bosses at the ACTU made increasingly Byzantine performance management demands of me in my final months at the ACTU, accusing me of a code of conduct violation and not being “comradely” and “courageous”. Was this pressure put on me because I challenged their authority by asking for a clear role description? Was it because they alleged I crossed my arms and yawned as a microaggression? Or, was it because I proactively registered a conflict of interest surrounding my election to the Victorian Greens state executive? They eventually fired me for not following their orders, while I was diligently following as many of their orders as I could. I later found out that Sarah Mitchell, who claimed responsibility for drafting a document that put baseless allegations of bad behaviour to me as part of the performance management process, had also investigated my workplace health and safety complaints about the baseless allegations of bad behaviour that were put to me, and didn’t seem to find anything wrong with making baseless allegations of bad behaviour.

My union representative, Laura Boehm, was a real gem. When I was fired, in my final meeting with her, she said she was going to escalate the discussion about my termination. At the time we had been talking to Yvette Nash, and Sally McManus is Yvette’s superior. Laura then went strangely radio silent until 2 days before I was due to lodge a claim with Fair Work, at which point she said she wouldn’t be representing me for any claim.

At fair work my lawyer was ejected, which he said he’d only heard of happening twice.

I’m now taking the ACTU to Federal court. The case number is MLG4610/2025.

I joined the union movement with the intention of making worker’s lives better. I now think that speaking up about the bad behaviour of the bosses at the ACTU, and the waste there, is one way to do that. I’ve exhausted all the avenues I had for resolving the issues within the confines of the ACTU, ASU and Fair Work.

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More to come.