Union bashing was never my reason for warning SA about the CFMEU | Will Frogley

In Melbourne, the dissenting voices shut up years ago. You play by the CFMEU rules over there, or you don’t play, writes Master Builders SA boss Will Frogley.

“God forgives, the CFMEU does not”.

The voice on the other end of the line was different from the previous calls I’d received from private numbers, but the words were the same.

There’s an irony about someone trying to intimidate you when they don’t have the balls to identify themselves.

But the menacing tone of the calls I received on a Wednesday morning in late June were unnerving.

The previous day I’d gone harder in my criticisms on John Setka and the CFMEU than at any time before.

Did I go too hard, or were they just trying to scare me into shutting up?

For a moment, the image of Setka openly posing with patched senior bikies, who he’d hired as CFMEU organisers and delegates, flashed through my head.

CFMEU leader John Setka pictured in Adelaide. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt

Master Builders South Australia CEO Will Frogley. Picture: NewsWire / Roy VanDerVegt

In Melbourne, the dissenting voices shut up years ago. You play by the CFMEU rules over there, or you don’t play.

Here it was always different.

The union was robust. They never took a backward step on safety or worker conditions, and nor should they have.

Unions have an important role to play in our industry.

The work can be tough and dangerous. Our workers deserve to be well paid and kept safe.

But back then we could generally sit around a table with the union and nut out our differences and come to a fair agreement.

That changed in August, 2022, when Setka’s Victorian branch took over the SA CFMEU.

Within 24 hours my car had been vandalised, as had other MBA SA vehicles.

But it’s what has been happening to people with skin in the game – business owners trying to deliver our infrastructure projects in already challenging economic conditions – that really worries me.

Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Tony Burke. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

I’ve seen evidence of at least one SA CFMEU representative brazenly standing over a local business recently.

The message was simple: If the business didn’t ensure his workers joined the union they wouldn’t be allowed on work sites. The business would also miss out on future contracts.

That’s where we’re at now in SA.

SA apprentices being told they can’t work unless they join a Victorian union which stands over their bosses and has open ties with bikies. Businesses being told to toe the line or miss work.

Would I want my son or daughter working in an industry like that?

It’s heartened me over the weekend to see federal Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke say that nothing is off the table – even deregistration of the construction arm of the CFMEU.

And now the national office of the CFMEU has taken control of the SA, Victorian and Tasmanian branches.

Premier Peter Malinauskas and Infrastructure Minister Tom Koutsantonis also deserve credit for asking SA Police to investigate whether any local links to the CFMEU and organised crime groups exist in SA.

But others have looked at me as if I’m union-bashing when I’ve warned them about the dangers of the CFMEU, and the takeover of long-running SA workers entitlements fund BIRST, being attempted by the Victorian CFMEU-backed Incolink.

A few weeks ago the CFMEU went on a blitz, shutting down sites of businesses across the nation who were holding out on signing Enterprise Bargaining Agreements that mandated workers entitlements be paid into Incolink.

Premier Peter Malinauskas and Transport Minister Tom Koutsantoni. Picture Dean Martin

Incolink’s board of directors still included Setka at the time of writing this, as well as other CFMEU figures.

At the end of last financial year, Incolink paid the CFMEU a $20 million dividend to help fund its operations.

The CFMEU model has contributed to disastrously high building and construction business insolvency rates in Victoria.

It’s a model we must avoid in SA if we’re to deliver on our state government’s ambitious policy and infrastructure agenda over the next few years, without budgets blowing out.

But the CFMEU represents more than just an economic threat to SA.

It poses a question about our values, regardless of which side of politics you sit.

If we’re serious about making building and construction an attractive industry for our young men and women, and overcoming SA’s skills shortage, we must take a stand against the CFMEU.

It remains to be seen whether Burke and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have the courage to do as the late Bob Hawke did, when he deregistered CFMEU forerunner the Builders Labourers Federation in the 1980s.

But we do have levers we can pull from North Tce.

It starts by mandating that workers entitlements on state government jobs be paid into a South Australian workers entitlements fund.

We must also explore avenues to help legitimate trade unions like the AWU move into the SA construction space.

Will Frogley is CEO of Master Builders South Australia