Strike shows stakes for Queensland CFMEU
In the middle of Brisbane’s legal district, spitting distance from the police headquarters and bustling Roma Street train station, dozens of striking construction workers congregate on a traffic island. A huge metal sculpture of a kangaroo looms comically over the impromptu camp, renamed by the workers “Solidarity Island”.
The workers, employed by CPB—the lead engineering contractor at the Cross River Rail construction site—have been striking on and off since May as they fight for a new workplace agreement. CPB is a wholly owned subsidiary of the industrial giant CIMIC, whose profits last year were nearly half a billion dollars. Somehow, no doubt perfectly legally, it paid only $55 million in tax, according to the company’s annual report.
The 150 striking workers have been consigned to Solidarity Island since 19 July, thanks to a court injunction banning them from being within 15 metres of a worksite entrance. Despite the whizzing traffic, persistently hostile media reports, and the looming threat of a federal government takeover of their union, the workers are confident and defiant.
And they are right to be. The vast majority of CPB employees are taking part in the strike. The workers know that every time they stop working, so too does the site. They talk about receiving support from construction sites across the city. Even though the dispute has dragged on for months, they plan to win.
When the enterprise agreements for the huge Cross River Rail project in Brisbane were first negotiated in 2019, the CFMEU was locked out in preference for a cut-price deal between the bosses and the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU). It’s only now, more than four years later and after the expiry of that dodgy deal, that the CFMEU has been able to edge in by organising the workers on site.
The workers’ determination comes not just from their strength but because they know this is a fight to improve the industry standard. This includes pay rises, but, importantly, the CFMEU is also trying to ensure that workers employed by subcontractors (which is most workers on any construction site) are paid the same rates as other workers.
In addition to equal pay for all workers, the union also demands a heat policy in line with other CFMEU agreements. The union wants all work to stop once the temperature reaches 35 degrees (or lower if there is high humidity).
There have been several deaths and other serious injuries on the $6.3 billion Cross River Rail project. Late last year, 29-year-old Daniel Sa’u died from heat stress after finishing a full day’s work. He left behind a wife and three young children. His wife Jeraldine later said at a CFMEU rally: “What happened to him is not right ... those in power who could have prevented his death need to be held accountable”.
CFMEU members striking at CPB have been at the centre of many of the recent attacks on the union, which have come from the federal Labor government and the state Labor government of Stephen Miles, as well as the usual suspects: the corporate media, the right-wing parties and the bosses’ spokespeople. This strike predictably has been reported as emblematic of union thuggery.
In a sense, the CPB workers and their strike are emblematic of what is at stake in the federal government and Fair Work Commission move to sack all elected officials—268 all up—in the CFMEU’s construction division (only the WA and ACT branches have been spared). While allegations of serious corruption and criminal dealings have been made in the Victorian and NSW branches, in Queensland, the main charge seems to be that the CFMEU is leading a strike.
