The ACTU insists the likely suspension of the Health Services Union (HSU) from the movement's ranks is aimed at encouraging the union to take action, rather than punish its members.
The ACTU's executive will meet on Thursday to consider suspending the HSU following an investigation by Fair Work Australia.
The workplace watchdog has referred a 1100-page report of its investigation of the HSU to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions to consider possible criminal charges.
The report, which FWA is not releasing on legal grounds, makes
allegations of workplace law breaches against three former or
current HSU officials and another person.
ACTU secretary Jeff Lawrence says the union movement wanted to encourage the HSU to deal with the issue by suspending it from its ranks.
But he acknowledged the matter was still being investigated and that the ACTU was not a court.
"What we need to do is to give a clear signal about this, in an encouragement to people to deal with these issues," he told ABC Radio on Thursday.
"Clearly there's a whole range of issues that have been raised, that are being investigated.
Mr Lawrence said HSU members should not be punished during the investigation and any suspension.
"This action would be designed to ensure, partly, that representation is continued.
"The executive needs to consider whether more needs to be done and that's a matter it will be addressing."
The opposition is persisting with calls for FWA to release the
report publicly.
A Senate committee has asked for a copy of the report, which it would then be able to table in parliament and make public.
But the opposition leader in the Senate, Eric Abetz, is not holding his breath waiting.
"We know that they've refused to make Freedom of Information requests available until appeals to the information commissioner were held," he told ABC radio.
"But now that a bipartisan committee of the parliament has requested that of Fair Work Australia I would invite them to cooperate just for this once."
Meanwhile, independent senator Nick Xenophon has found a funny side to the whole affair.
"There's now a new phrase in Australian colloquialism to describe working hard for years but producing a useless result - it's called doing sweet FWA," he told AAP.
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