Construction union official and ex-NRL player John Lomax will fight allegations that he blackmailed a Canberra employer into signing an enterprise bargaining agreement.
Unionists rallied in support of the 49-year-old former Canberra Raiders prop before his appearance at the ACT Magistrates Court on Wednesday.
Lomax gave a fist pump as he walked through a guard of honour into the building to face one charge of blackmail.
Court documents allege Lomax made an "unwarranted demand with menace" to Canberra subcontractor Woong Yul Park to sign an enterprise bargaining agreement with the CFMEU in 2014.
The documents allege this was done with the "intention of causing a loss".
Lomax's lawyer John Agius told Magistrate Maria Doogan his client would plead not guilty to the charge.
But he asked that bail conditions preventing Lomax from approaching the victim and his co-accused, former CFMEU organiser Halafihi "Fihi" Kivalu, be varied because they may inadvertently be breached in the course of him visiting work sites as part of his job.
"He's just a man who wants to go about doing his job," Mr Agius told the court.
"(These conditions) prevent him from doing that."
Lomax was arrested at CFMEU headquarters in Canberra in July by the police task force connected to the royal commission into trade union corruption.
He was the second person arrested in relation to the commission's Canberra hearings.
Court documents allege Kivalu, who has separately pleaded not guilty to two charges of blackmail, told Mr Park he would be kicked off his Queanbeyan worksite, and threatened he would never win another job with any builder if his company Nel Trading did not sign an EBA with the CFMEU.
Mr Park called Lomax, whom he knew from previous dealings as a "friendly" CFMEU organiser, but was told that if he didn't sign the EBA "he would keep getting phone calls and possibly be kicked out of the Queanbeyan job site".
Days later, Mr Park agreed to sign the EBA, believing he had "no choice".
"As Nel Trading was a new company, Mr Park believed that if he did not comply with the demand to sign the CFMEU EBA, his company would face financial ruin and would be unable to continue trading," court documents say.
It's alleged Mr Park suffered financial loss as a result of signing the EBA.
"Due to being tied to EBA-mandated wages, the lowest he can pay his workers is $26 an hour.
"Competing companies often pay workers as low as $17 an hour, and Mr Park estimates this has led to him being unsuccessful in about 50 per cent of the jobs he tenders for as the higher wages he must pay mean his quoted prices for jobs are not competitive."
CFMEU secretary Dave Noonan told reporters outside court that Prime Minister Tony Abbott was trying to criminalise union attempts to secure better pay and conditions for workers.
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