<div>Earlier this year, the now deposed head of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, Nigel Hadgkiss, and employment minister Michaelia Cash attempted to extend the powers of the ABCC into essential services. For most of its existence, the anti-union ABCC and Labor’s similar body, Fair Work Building and Construction, had oversight only of the construction industry.</div>
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<div>But the 2017 law that reintroduced the ABCC tried to extend its reach into other sectors like power, water, sewage and telecommunications. The only way out of the ABCC’s grip for these industries would be if the body itself approved an “essential services” exemption.</div>
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<div>SA Power Networks (SAPN) – privatised in 1999 – is the largest power line distribution company in South Australia. It applied for and was refused an exemption by Hadgkiss. According to the ABCC’s decision, only part of SAPN – its distribution arm – would be exempt from the ABCC. However, the part of the company – now named Enerven – that builds infrastructure and supplies power to major projects including the National Broadband Network, would not be, opening up a new front in the ABCC’s war on unions.</div>
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<div>In response, the Electrical Trades Union came out swinging, bringing officials from New South Wales, Queensland, the ACT and Western Australia to aid the local Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU) and the Australian Services Union (ASU) in the fight. The strategy was threefold: one, a depot-by-depot organising campaign to build union membership, involve the rank and file and work towards a mass rally in the Adelaide CBD. Two, a big media campaign across all media, including social media. The final front was a legal challenge in the Federal Court and lobbying of politicians Australia-wide, including the main target, Nick Xenophon, whose vote helped secured the reintroduction of the ABCC.</div>
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<div>The outcome was positive. Membership was boosted and new, younger delegates came to the fore alongside experienced militants. Outrage at the prospect of the ABCC controlling the sector went industry wide after the depot visits, and the media campaign resulted in public support rallying behind the workers. The feeling was that, although it would be an uphill battle against the federal government, the campaign could win.</div>
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<div>Outside of Xenophon’s electorate office on 21 July, hundreds of unionists and supporters, including the local Socialist Alternative branch, came to stand in solidarity with power industry workers. The rally was a great success and boosted further the belief that we could beat the ABCC.</div>
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<div>A month after the rally, on 21 August, news came through that the code had been amended. The laws were changed to read that essential services “must” be exempt. The Federal Court challenge was no longer needed. It seemed as if victory had come.</div>
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<div>Now, nearly three months later, we’re bargaining for a new enterprise agreement with SAPN. The company is yet to apply formally for the exemption, despite promises that it will. It is not in the interest of the bosses to apply for an exemption from the laws that allow them to reduce workers’ rights and limit the ability to organise. From our side, the CEPU is pressing the company to get the exemption and for it to apply to both of its arms.</div>
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<div>SAPN workers are standard setters in South Australia because of the size of the workforce and union density. Alarmingly, Enerven has poor union membership numbers and has been more difficult to organise. This has put a halt to industry wide bargaining.</div>
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<div>While a victory was won in South Australia, the battle against the ABCC and for better wages and conditions for all workers is far from over.</div>

Aaron Furnell

SA power industry fights off ABCC

<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>

SA power industry fights off ABCC

SA power workers fighting spread of ABCC

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