SA power workers fighting spread of ABCC

On a dreary winter’s afternoon in Adelaide, not far from a place that workers in the powerline distribution industry call “bullshit castle” – the headquarters of SA Power Networks – the Communication, Electrical and Plumber’s Union (CEPU) called a meeting on a pressing issue.

The ABCC has extended its tentacles from the construction industry into the power industry. It’s an industry with a large workforce of “lifers” – life-long, loyal workers who ensure that houses, hospitals, schools, and businesses across South Australia can access electricity.

SA Power Networks (SAPN) is the largest powerline distribution and construction company in the state, with depots from Ceduna in the far west down to Mount Gambier in the south. Formerly known as the Electricity Trust of South Australia, it was privatised in 1999 and its distribution, transmission and retail arms divided into three separate entities. The distribution arm, or field services, SAPN, is regulated to ensure that electricity is supplied to consumers safely and reliably.

But SAPN also operates an unregulated division (called construction and maintenance services, CaMS) that wins contracts to build infrastructure and to supply power to major projects including the National Broadband Network. Field services must ensure that power gets to the consumer and is classified as an essential service, much like firefighters or the SES, whereas CaMS is to build infrastructure and to turn a profit.

SAPN is looking to be the first essential services company to apply the restrictive federal building code, enforced by the ABCC, to its workplace agreement. The company’s enterprise agreement, covering 2,000 workers, lapsed last year. That agreement was beyond the reach of the ABCC because it received an essential services exemption from the Fair Work Building and Construction agency, the ABCC-lite building industry regulator established in 2012 by Julia Gillard’s Labor government, but replaced by the ABCC again in 2016 by the Turnbull government.

Earlier this year, after pressure from the union, SAPN applied for the same exemption for its new agreement. But the ABCC ruled that the company’s CaMS division does not provide an essential service and will be subject to the code. SAPN is using the exemption refusal to split its workforce and force CaMS workers onto a stripped back agreement which will comply with the code. Field services and CaMS workers have the same skills and training, hold the same trade certificates and do the same work.

The code will savage wages and conditions for powerline workers in the same way it will for construction workers. If SAPN can force workers onto a code-compliant agreement they will lose rostered days off and existing protections for secure full time work. Union consultation provisions will be cut. Workers will no longer be able to demand the company hire apprentices or maintain appropriate ratios between apprentices and qualified workers. The current contractor parity clause – requiring that industry standards apply to labour hire workers – will also be removed.

In July, the CEPU launched a campaign, One SAPN, to overturn the ABCC’s decision. It has filed a Federal Court appeal, which will be heard on 25 September. But we cannot count on this alone. The union is organising information and recruitment meetings at the gates of depots across the state. A campaign is also being run across radio and print media as well as with billboards.

Letters of complaint are being sent to the crossbenchers who voted to reintroduce the ABCC, including South Australian senator Nick Xenophon. On 21 July there will be a rally in the Adelaide CBD, with calls for ACTU secretary Sally McManus to make an appearance.

This is a fight for SAPN workers and powerline workers across Australia. If the ABCC is allowed to extend its jurisdiction into essential services, it will be a dire day for workers and working class power.