In late May, a meeting of more than 5,000 construction workers at Melbourne’s Festival Hall voted to endorse an in-principle agreement with a group of major employers. This deal will form the basis of a pattern agreement that the CFMEU is pursuing across the industry in Victoria.
The agreement includes three annual pay rises of 5 percent and an eight-hour minimum for casuals (up from four hours in the current agreement). For the first time, the agreement provides for paid parental leave, domestic violence leave and compulsory provision of separate amenities for women workers. The agreement also locks in the calendar of rostered days off that guarantees some weekends and days off to relieve the long hours demanded of workers in the construction industry (56-hour weeks are standard, with many doing more).
Workers at the Festival Hall meeting were assured that the agreement continued and strengthened the traditionally strong, and hard fought for, Victorian pattern agreement. However, it was also reported that there are some concessions in the deal. Changes to do with the inclement weather clauses will mean that, instead of going home after four hours of rain, crane crews will stay on site if other trades are working under cover. A temperature of 35 degrees will still mean workers go home: but if that temperature is reached for three days in a row, on the third day workers will stay on site (though not working) for up to 90 minutes if a cool change is forecast.
A full assessment of the agreement will have to wait for the exact wording, which will be made available to workers in coming weeks ahead of formal Fair Work ballots on the deal. But there are several key tests that any agreement will have to meet if building workers are going to overcome the challenges facing us.
The draft agreement contains a clause on sham subcontracting. One crucial test of the agreement is the extent to which it strengthens the union’s hand in dealing with underpaying and non-compliant companies. These companies have proliferated in recent years, especially in the finishing trades and on mid-sized and large suburban jobs.
The vicious anti-union building code, proposed by the Liberal government in 2014 but not yet passed into law, leaves a question mark hanging over the whole deal. The code prohibits companies that tender for federally funded work from signing an enterprise agreement that provides for shop stewards, a fixed calendar for rostered days off, restrictions on subcontracting, ratios for apprentices and many other crucial features of the pattern agreement.
The Master Builders Association, backed by the federal government, refuses to negotiate an agreement that doesn’t comply with the proposed code. However, the CFMEU was able to reach a draft agreement with a breakaway group of companies that were prepared to sign on to a deal in return for some certainty around costs and industrial peace as the industry approaches a new peak of speculative apartment building.
The coming weeks will show which companies are willing to sign this agreement and which are keen to dig in their heels for a fight. With the union pushing for companies to sign the deal by 1 July, we won’t have long to wait to find out. 
In the event of the 2014 code becoming law after the 2 July election, the CFMEU retains the right to terminate the agreement and pursue protected industrial action. As always, the only way to guarantee that construction workers meet the challenges facing us is to prepare the union for a serious industrial fight.

CFMEU member

Vic construction deal: challenges ahead

It’s not uncommon for the media, right wing politicians and sometimes right wing union leaders to have a go at the wages and conditions that construction workers have built up through generations of struggle.
Which is why, as a proud member of the WA branch of the CFMEU, I was shocked to read that a wage cutting proposal recently touted in the pages of the Australian Financial Review was reported to have come from our own union.
While no agreement has been made, the union leadership hasn’t denied reports that, as part of current enterprise bargaining negotiations, it has proposed to cut hourly wage rates by 9 percent and wages overall by 20 percent.
Instead, it had this to say in the union’s publication Construction Worker: “… discussions have proceeded on the basis that there is recognition on our part that there needs to be structural adjustment due to the contraction of major construction work in both the mining and construction sectors …
“Employers can no longer use the excuse that they are dealing with uncompetitive rates. Contrary to the endless criticisms from the Abbott government and other right wing organisations, we are aware of the issues around productivity and profitability in our industry.”
“We are responding to this in a way that preserves hard fought gains while keeping our members employed in what is currently a tough market.”
The union is clearly floating concessions it’s prepared to offer. Although the specific detail of what has been reported in the AFR remains unconfirmed, there are some important points to be made against arguments justifying concessions and about the disastrous impact of a backdown on wages or conditions. 
We have come under an array of attacks from the Abbott government: a royal commission, the potential reinstitution of the ABCC, threatened deregistration and the issuing of hundreds of thousands in fines for “illegal” industrial action. Their intention is clear – weaken one of the strongest unions in the country and send a signal to others that you can’t fight. Added to this is the reality that some anti-union builders and contractors have occupied a space in the industry through unscrupulous practices, including undercutting union rates.
But the logic of the market is the logic of the bosses. They rely on job market insecurity to force wages down in good times and bad. They continue profiting from our labour in the so-called lean times. We have nothing to gain from accepting that our labour is sometimes of lesser value. We should be fighting to maintain what we have wrested from the grubby mitts of builders and mining companies, no matter what the market.
Talk of productivity, profitability and competitive rates is not the currency of trade unionists. These are the very reasons given for making us work longer, harder and too often dangerously. We have to reject the idea that our wages and conditions should be dependent on “the right kind” of builder or a contractor’s ability to make a profit and to win tenders. We didn’t get to where we are today by trying to influence the selection of builders who are prepared to play nice.
Shonky contractors shouldn’t be given the elbow room to operate at all. We need to weed them out with militant action. We need to force them up to union standards, not let them set the terrain on wages and conditions.
On a site where I have been working recently – a non-EBA site – those who call the union over safety issues have been hounded and labelled “infiltrators” by management. Without a fight, a builder like this will be obstructive towards the union no matter how low we price our labour. The only remedy is to organise these sites.
The challenges that we face today are not so different from those faced by workers in this industry in generations past. They organised their workplaces, and if it was good enough for them it’s good enough for me.
Any cut to wages or conditions is a sure signal to bosses in all industries that there is a new benchmark for how much more they can squeeze out of their workers. We are under a concerted attack from governments and bosses. The scale of the fight that we face shouldn’t be understated, but cutting our own wages won’t help us win.

Cut-price CFMEU deal would cost workers everywhere

It’s 40 degrees and I’m balancing on the roof of a two storey house with a six metre drop in front of me. I’m trying to hold a nail gun in one hand and holding on for dear life with the other. There is no barrier or harness to catch me if I let go.
This was a day at work for me as an apprentice carpenter working for a small company. I was luckier than others. I never went home with anything more than cuts and bruises.
A few years ago, Kane Ammerlaan, a 16 year old tiling apprentice working in Melbourne fell off a roof while carrying a 50-kg bucket of cement. The cement from the bucket shot into his eye, dried, and left him blind in that eye. Kane’s boss didn’t call an ambulance. Instead, he laughed and took a photo with his phone.
Kane’s story is not uncommon for young apprentices. According to WorkSafe Victoria’s figures workers under the age of 24 are more likely to be seriously injured at work than any other age group.
But WorkSafe has done nothing to change this. It was left up to the construction union (the CFMEU) to take on Kane’s boss.
When you’re an apprentice, the boss knows that you will generally keep your mouth shut to keep your job. You’re pushed to ignore safety risks to get the job done quickly.
There is constant bullying, which also makes it tough to speak up. My boss would take any chance to have a laugh at my expense, telling me I was too slow and making a point of every little thing I fucked up.
You’re forced to do jobs that you just aren’t qualified to do. You’re made to feel like you have to prove yourself. But it can be deadly.
In 2010, Wade Braeckman, a 15 year-old apprentice had his arm ripped off by a lathe and later died in hospital. He wasn’t qualified to be using the equipment; he shouldn’t have been anywhere near the machine without supervision.
Kevin Hadfield, who owned the factory where Wade worked, later pleaded guilty in the NSW Industrial Relations Commission to the offence of failing to provide a safe work place. He was fined $30,000. That’s what a young worker’s life is worth.

Vic construction deal: challenges ahead

Cut-price CFMEU deal would cost workers everywhere

Young workers at risk

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