High stakes for all workers in construction battle

Chants of “One, two, three, fuck the ALP!” rang out across Sydney in late September as several thousand striking construction workers protested in city streets. Around 5,000 workers struck and rallied in Sydney and Brisbane. But the construction unions in Melbourne once again put the biggest crowds on the street—upwards of 25,000, according to police estimates.

It’s just over a month since the federal Labor government appointed a barrister to take total dictatorial control over the main construction union, the CFMEU. It is the most draconian attack on a union in living memory. All elected positions in most state branches have been replaced with a single unelected administrator who has publicly committed to strict adherence to Australia’s restrictive industrial laws.

The strikes and rallies in response, and the stationary tower cranes dotting the skyline that formed their backdrop, illustrated a fundamental truth that no amount of spin from Labor ministers or highly paid administrators can wish away: it is construction workers, not overpaid administrators, cabinet ministers or Fair Work commissioners, who keep the whole industry going—and who can stop it in an instant.

This industrial strength is sorely needed.

Part of Labor’s attack, via the Fair Work Commission, has been dramatically slowing the approval of new enterprise agreements (EAs) in Victoria. This has sent a signal to employers, some of whom are now clearly dragging their feet about signing and lodging these new EAs. Several thousand Victorian CFMEU members who were already getting the first 5 percent pay increase under the new pattern EA have now had those pay increases withdrawn.

Over the past two weeks, an average of just one new Victorian EA per day has appeared on the dedicated Fair Work Commission web page showing new CFMEU agreements being lodged. This is a fraction of the number usually lodged as a new EA gets rolled out.

All of this poses a serious threat to a core piece of the architecture of the CFMEU’s industrial strength: the “pattern” enterprise agreement governing the wages and conditions of tens of thousands of construction workers. Without this pattern EA in place, a “race to the bottom” could quickly take hold in the core of the commercial construction industry.

A battle to get the EA over the line in Victoria will take various forms.

The last serious attempt to break the pattern EA in Victoria was Daniel Grollo’s ill-fated 2002 attempt to win a non-union ballot at his Grocon company. The CFMEU organised an industry-wide publicity campaign and targeted doorknocking, CFMEU members doorknocking members in their own language. T-shirts with the slogan “I’m not Daniel’s Donkey” were a popular fashion item, off and on the job.

The union campaign was a huge success, 75 percent of the workforce voting “no”. Renewing this sort of detailed organising work will be important to defeat any similar employer ballots this time around.

Industrial action, protected or unprotected, aimed at particular employers will also be crucial in forcing recalcitrant bosses over the line—as will further industry-wide stop-works and rallies. The chair of the Melbourne rally, Electrical Trades Union Secretary Troy Gray, got the biggest cheer of the day when he threatened to shut down the industry with a three-day strike if there were “an orchestrated, continued attack on the working conditions and the living standards of Victorian construction workers”.

The rest of us have a stake in this fight as well.

The break-up of industry bargaining into myriad enterprise-level agreements, pioneered by Labor in the early 1990s and continued by every government since, has fragmented solidarity and allowed conditions to go backwards.

In contrast, the CFMEU and other construction unions have been more effective than any other private sector industry in maintaining a common standard across different employers. Enforcement is often a problem. For instance, the “finishing trades” such as plastering and painting have been a basket case in Victoria since 2005, even on unionised commercial sites: many workers flying a union flag don’t actually get the union rate.

Nevertheless, the construction unions have demonstrated in practice that it is still possible, despite enormously restrictive industrial laws, to achieve the most basic union goal of taking wages and conditions out of competition by imposing a common standard across the core of an industry. This living, breathing example of effective unionism is what’s now under threat from Labor’s attack.

The government claims its attack is necessary in response to a series of media stories in recent months. These have included serious allegations of corruption and criminal gang involvement in the structure of the Victorian and NSW branches of the CFMEU. We shouldn’t fall for the government’s spin.

As Red Flag has previously noted, these problems can be tackled only by a revival of union democracy: regular election and re-election of all on-site delegates, full accountability to the membership regarding any allegations (and actions taken to address them) and most importantly a revival in the industrial action and politically informed debate that are the lifeblood of any real union democracy.

But of course, the Labor government moved in the opposite direction—abolishing all democratic rights for CFMEU members in five states, and appointing an unelected administrator with dictatorial powers over the union and with precisely zero obligations to report to any member.

The only serious “crime” of the Queensland CFMEU branch in the eyes of Nick McKenzie, the main journalist who broke the stories, was failing to prevent “ugly scenes in public streets” in Brisbane. This is a reference to a picket at the crucial Cross River Rail dispute in Brisbane—probably the most important dispute in the country right now. In other words, the real “crime” in the eyes of the political establishment and their mouthpieces is effective unionism.

Whatever the public justification for Labor’s attacks, they have led directly to a growing assault on workers’ wages and conditions—especially in Victoria over the new pattern agreement.

For decades, many union causes in Melbourne and beyond have benefited from the solidarity of construction union members. Rallies for workers’ compensation or for better industrial laws, pickets large and small for all sorts of workers—all of them have benefited when the CFMEU turned up. Without that practical solidarity, and without that living example of a union that has maintained significant industrial strength when so many have let it peter out, we’d all be that much poorer.

It’s now our turn to show up for the CFMEU. Anyone who values effective unionism in this country has a stake in this fight.