Gold Coast Commonwealth Games construction workers ‘doing as little as two hours a day’

A COURT has heard allegations of how much work is actually being done at a Gold Coast Commonwealth Games worksite amid union stoppages.

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AS LITTLE as two hours’ work a day was being done at a significant Commonwealth Games site, with the CFMEU holding stop-work meetings at key times to cause maximum disruption to the $126 million project, a court has been told.

Executives from Australia’s top construction firms have also given evidence against the CFMEU after Fair Work Building and Construction accused the union of using the meetings to ­coerce the head contractor into signing a new enterprise agreement.

A union meeting at Carrara earlier this year.

A trial began in the Federal Court in Brisbane yesterday to determine whether the union should be fined over the meetings at the Carrara Sports and Recreation Project run by contractor Hansen Yuncken.

Fair Work barrister Jim Murdoch, QC, said structural workers arrived at the site at 6.30am for coffee ahead of the first CFMEU “communication meeting”, which involved barbecues and “lying around”.

Hansen Yuncken state manager Gregory Baumann said very little happened between the meetings, which stopped in June after a Federal Court order.

Mr Baumann said he believed the meetings, which cost the company about $700,000 and put deadlines at risk, were held in connection with the new enterprise bargaining agreement.

The CFMEU has argued the enterprise agreement was not discussed at the meetings and they were held to inform workers of the Federal Government’s new building code.

Construction of the Commonwealth Games athletes’ village continues at Southport last week. Pic: Dave Hunt/AAP