Editorial: Union’s massive pay push fails the pub test
A move by the CFMEU to push for $2000-a-week pay rises for workers on the Cross River Rail project will not sit well with ordinary Queenslanders, writes the editor.
Opinion
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A move by the CFMEU to push for $2000-a-week pay rises for workers on the Cross River Rail project will not sit well with ordinary Queenslanders.
A story in today’s Sunday Mail by State Political Reporter Stephanie Bennett Reveals the union is pushing for huge wage increases, even as the project goes $1bn over budget.
A flyer obtained by Bennett shows the union wants top tunnel and shaft night shift workers, who receive $5319 per week, to receive $7451 pre-tax for a 50-hour week.
That hoped-for wage rise would translate into an annual salary of $387,000 for some workers – more than four times the state’s average wage of around $90,000 a year.
Which is not to decry the generous salaries which construction workers are securing right across this country because of the demand for their skills.
These workers often work in dangerous environments and should be compensated for risks they are forced to take to get these enormous construction jobs completed.
The CFMEU, quite rightly, pointed out deficiencies in workplace safety on the project in the past and secured a government pledge for a ‘’safety reset’’ on Cross River Rail sites.
Australian unions, historically, have played a valued role in looking after the interests of workers.
The oversight of unions today can ensure workers remain safe, reasonably well paid and not forced into unreasonable hours to earn their weekly wage.
But this taxpayer-funded rail project, for all its flaws, is sorely needed in a city with serious transport issues which need to be addressed, especially if we are to stage a successful 2032 Olympic Games.
In March, Transport Minister Mark Bailey revealed the project, now in its fourth year of construction, had increased by $960m, taking the government cost from $5.4bn to $6.3bn.
The project’s completion date has also been pushed back from 2025 to 2026.
This push for wage rises, if successful, will only add to an already enormous bill which the taxpayer will ultimately pick up.
It could also, conceivably, push back the completion date if the wages push leads to industrial disputation.
Earning more than $7000 a week puts a worker comfortably inside the top 1 per cent of all Australians with a taxable income.
That, to most ordinary Queenslanders, is both excessive and unjustifiable, and represents an unfair burden on the rest of us who will, ultimately, have to pick up the tab.
Of course workers are free to argue for better wages, however there must always be a pub test applied.
This kind of pay push doesn’t pass the pub test.
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