Opinion: CFMEU inquiry is serious but no Fitzgerald moment for Labor

If Jarrod Bleijie thinks the CFMEU review will make Labor unelectable for years, he may be disappointed, writes Paul Williams. VOTE IN OUR POLL

The political narrative for Queensland for the next few months has just been decided.

With the dropping of the Watson Report into the CFMEU – alleging a culture of violence, intimidation, misogyny, and bullying – and with Premier David Crisafulli immediately calling an inquiry to investigate, expect a carnival of political mudslinging at coming parliamentary sittings.

Industrial Relations Minister Jarrod Bleijie has already described the review as Labor’s Fitzgerald moment, referring to the two-year Fitzgerald Inquiry in the late 1980s that brought down the Bjelke-Petersen government.

If Bleijie means salacious claims of industrial thuggery running like a nightly news soap opera humiliating a Labor party proud of its union – but not necessarily CFMEU – links, then he’s probably right.

But if he means the inquiry will make Labor unelectable for years, he’s probably wrong.

The Fitzgerald Inquiry was commissioned to explore allegations of corruption in a keystone government instrumentality – the police service – and was twice-expanded when corruption at the core of government was uncovered.

By contrast, the CFMEU is a body outside the legislature, the executive and the judiciary and, as a mere pressure group, its internal failings can hardly be blamed on any one political party.

But, despite the fact the CFMEU separated from Queensland Labor in 2020, and the fact Labor’s national executive last year suspended the union from its Queensland, West Australian, ACT and NT branches (with donations no longer accepted), and the fact former premier Steven Miles recently referred the union to the Crime and Corruption Commission, Queensland Labor – previously in receipt of generous CFMEU donations – will cringe, at least for a while.

But the bigger picture is that Queensland’s industrial relations are at a tipping point.

It’s fair to argue the CFMEU had indeed enjoyed too much leverage in the building and construction industry, with building costs allegedly blowing out by millions.

It’s reminiscent of the strike-laden 1970s when union strength seemed disproportionate to business power – a development that damaged Australia’s productivity and fuelled a wage-price cost-of-living spiral.

Union power was then tamed by the Hawke-Keating Labor governments that, under successive Prices and Incomes Accords, saw wage increases tied to productivity.

For most of the 1980s and early 1990s, it seemed unions were finally and harmoniously balanced with business.

All that changed in the 1990s when John Howard’s federal coalition government deregulated industrial relations – labour was to be treated like any other commodity – with Howard undermining compulsory trade union membership.

Today, the idea of forcing a worker to join a trade union sounds barbaric, but it can be argued compulsory unionism kept working class living standards high, and kept the gap between rich and poor narrow.

In the 1960s – when very few held a university degree and trade union membership was high – a single-income family could own a home, a car and enjoy an annual holiday.

Today, three decades after Howard’s reforms, the wealth of Australia’s top 10 per cent has grown from $2.8m to $5.2m (up 84 per cent) in just 20 years, while that of Australia’s lowest 60 per cent increased by just 55 per cent, from $222,000 to $343,000, over the same period.

It’s no accident this inequality is matched by sharp decline in union membership.

Where, in the late 1980s, about half of Australian workers were unionised, today just 13 per cent are.

Ironically, white-collar professionals on higher wages join unions at twice the rate of blue-collar workers.

Clearly, Australians don’t want to pay union fees when wage rises are awarded to all workers regardless of membership.

But if workers knew increased membership empowers unions to fight for even higher wages, I’m sure more would join.

Indeed, to the sceptical I ask this: with whom do you have more in common – your boss or your fellow workers?

Put bluntly, from too much union power in the 1970s to a balance in the 1980s, unions today appear to have too little power – and business too much – in an increasingly unequal Australia.

Despite this, the calling of an inquiry into the CFMEU is necessary if only to rebuild Queenslanders’ faith in trade unionism.

But the Crisafulli government – on receipt of the inquiry’s report months from now – must be careful not to throw the health and safety baby out with the CFMEU bathwater.

Building sites are dangerous places – just as buses, mines, hospitals and classrooms pose their own perils – and any new LNP industrial laws must acknowledge this. In short, “union” need not be a dirty word.

Paul Williams is an associate professor at Griffith University