New CFMEU boss sets sights on housing amid cleanout and reset

A newly appointed CFMEU boss has vowed to launch a landmark blitz on the housing sector as the union seeks to rebuild its power across the nation, vowing he would not be deterred by bikie enforcers who seek to stop him.

NSW executive director of the construction union Michael Crosby, who has overseen the departure of nine organisers from the union since he started late last month, set out a blueprint for the union’s future at his first delegates meeting in Sydney on Friday, including extending its reach into non-unionised builders and cracking down on non-compliance across the state.

NSW CFMEU chief Michael Crosby has set out a blueprint for the union’s future.Credit: Peter Rae

His nascent effort to counter sapping morale and a plunge in the CFMEU’s industrial power as the Building Bad saga drags on is being replicated by Crosby’s Victorian counterpart, Zach Smith, although the challenge is arguably far greater in what was the union’s most powerful state for over a decade.

Smith’s branch is riven with factionalism and ongoing efforts by exiled CFMEU bosses to assert influence, and while both the Victoria and NSW branches have faced significant organised crime and corruption issues, the problem is seen as more entrenched in Victoria.

On a recent visit to a Victorian government Big Build site, Smith was met with union members chanting in support of ousted CFMEU vice president Joe Myles.

Despite Myles’ sacking from the union last year and being part of the ongoing internal investigations over bikie gangs on the Victorian government’s Big Build, he retains the support of several delegates and organisers ostensibly working for Smith.

CFMEU national secretary Zach Smith at a Melbourne rally last year.Credit: Justin McManus

Smith’s strong backing this week of two veteran CFMEU organisers, John Perkovic and Stephen Long, has also been met with a mixed reception within the union, with the pair previously deeply embedded with the union’s former regime that fostered a culture the administration now wants to reform. This masthead is not suggesting that Perkovic and Long have been accused of wrongdoing or are under investigation.

Industry sources said Perkovic had convinced Smith he was committed to the reform of the union and is loyal to Smith’s leadership.

Long also has deep ties to ex-union bosses facing accusation of impropriety, while his years-long success getting the union to repeatedly sponsor the Port Melbourne Football Club has also annoyed some CFMEU insiders.

In NSW, Crosby’s push to extend CFMEU coverage into apartment projects – which government funding is expected to boost in coming years – marks a new and controversial front and immediately attracted concerns from builders warning it could significantly raise housing costs.

The CFMEU in NSW has long wanted involvement in the multistorey residential market, with industry insiders saying it would be “the jewel in the crown” for the union.

In Victoria, the union is already active in the larger end of the apartment market, but housing looms as a sector within which it also could gain greater industrial coverage.

Crosby, in his 70s, is a veteran unionist who previously resurrected the actors’ union to become one of the most powerful in the world, helped lead the hospitality union to organise non-unionised cleaners, and has advised on reshaping unions around the world.

He faces a shattered CFMEU branch where membership dropped 19 per cent in the past year – the largest decline of all the branches – and now sits at about 13,000 workers, or less than 7 per cent of the industry.

Crosby also has to deal with an industry that CFMEU administrator Mark Irving, KC, said on Thursday had shown “clear evidence” of criminal infiltration and corruption across the east coast.

Former Labor minister and ex-ACTU secretary Greg Combet questioned Crosby’s mental health when he took the role, Crosby told the meeting.

Crosby kicked off his purge of old-guard organisers on just his second day when he moved to dismiss two officials after The Australian Financial Review photographed them meeting with a removed organiser who allegedly maintained contact with ousted secretary Darren Greenfield, who recently pleaded guilty to corruption.

More exits are expected from the branch, which is at the same time recruiting experienced organisers from other unions.

In the CFMEU delegates meeting, Crosby laid out plans to use his organisers to crack down on employers winning projects by not complying with their CFMEU agreements, and to extend the union’s reach from commercial and infrastructure projects to the residential market.

“You think you can run a union with 50 per cent density and maintain those Rolls-Royce enterprise agreements, you’d better think again. You want to keep those agreements, we need 80 or 90 per cent density so that bosses don’t challenge our power,” he told delegates.

With the NSW’s large government infrastructure projects coming to an end, Crosby told delegates that state and federal government funding, plus “a flood of superannuation money”, was going into build-to-rent apartment buildings.

“How many blocks of home units do we build in the CFMEU – sweet FA,” he told delegates.

“We are not in that sector at all, and the builders who are going to get that state government money are not our builders, not the good builders who are prepared to deal with the union, and the challenge for us is we’ve got to get into that non-union sector.”

A Master Builders NSW spokesman said that if the CFMEU behaved on high-rise apartment projects in a way similar to commercial projects, then consumers would pay.

“The union will push up the cost of new apartments by a minimum of 20 per cent and undermine the NSW government’s ability to achieve its housing targets,” he said.

“This CFMEU declaration of intent in the middle of a housing crisis should draw urgent scrutiny by the CFMEU’s administrator and the NSW and federal governments.”

Crosby warned delegates that he had been advised that the non-union sector “hires bikies to stand at the gate to stop people from getting in”.

Subcontractors also kept migrants’ passports to keep them working, and the sector was filled with people working cash-in-hand, he claimed.

“It’s going to be tough to persuade them to get in there to organise, but that’s the challenge for the CFMEU and that’s why we can’t afford any more of the disunity.”

To ward off concerns that the union would be a “pushover” under administration, he said he would transfer $5 million of members’ money into an industry strike fund, saying “we are not going to be starved into submission”.

“It’s a rich union and we can afford to pay people enough to live on when they’re on [strike],” he said.

Meanwhile, over the next six months organisers would do “compliance checks across the entire industry”.

“We’re going to be looking at Incolink, CBUS wages, and are workers’ compensation premiums being paid.”

Delegates told this masthead that they viewed Crosby’s speech as a “line in the sand” for the old regime following previous meetings that had erupted into vicious internal attacks.

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