Attack on Construction Workers' Union Is All About Profits and Destroying Workers Collective Power

Written by: Ned K. on 26 August 2024

On Friday 23 August CFMEU members experienced the first day of their Union being in the hands of federal government enabled Administrators. As soon as this happened two hundred elected Officials and Councillors of the CFMEU from all over Australia were terminated from their roles by the Administrator.

The day before, Thursday 22 August the big business finance capital mouthpiece Australian Financial Review had front page article with headlines, " Builders act to take on CFMEU".

The article was most informative. It reported that at least some major building companies that had Enterprise Agreements with the CFMEU intended to remove "CFMEU vetoes and other restrictions" which enabled the Union to have some degree of influence on which sub-contractors the primary building company engaged.

One of the builders named is the WeBuild Group who are the principal contractor on the largest infrastructure project in NSW, the Sydney Metro Western Airport line.

The article also quoted the Master Builders Association NSW Executive Director Brian Seidler saying,

"In the last two weeks, there's been a groundswell of contractors that have indicated they've been dissatisfied with their enterprise agreement, not so much with the rates but the imposition of having to consult the union before letting subcontracts on even though they've won the job".

Seidler went on, "This fundamentally gives the union the power of veto and to dictate who is on the job and eventually to control the job. We're already seeing a trend where the union is saying, “You must choose from a list of union EBA subcontractors."

Seidler said builders did not want to be bound to " use union-sanctioned labour."

Initially, construction workers on a large site may maintain their current pay and conditions to give the appearance that the bosses and federal government are not after the workers, just the elected Union reps, from job site Delegate to the Union executive level.

However, the rot is likely to set in earlier for construction workers employed by the subcontractors on a large site or project. Eventually with turnover of labour, the big builders hope to destroy the collective strength of the workers through employment of non-union labour.

Their strategy is bound to fail. The very nature of construction work and the contractors' quest for extracting more surplus value from workers to realise more profit will unite workers and move them to appropriate collective action to protect their own pay and conditions and importantly, health and safety on the job.

The other dilemma for the bosses is that while they dream of having a docile, hardworking workforce, the reality is that they need workers who know what they are doing and thousands of them are CFMEU members and likely to stand by each other no matter what. 

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