Fight over CFMEU flag on cranes at Brisbane Showgrounds site triggers industrial action

A FIGHT over a union flag has triggered industrial action on an inner-city Brisbane building site.

CFMEU RALLY union protest outside the magistrates court. flag honour guard.Pic Annette Dew

A FIGHT over the distinctive Construction Forestry Mining & Energy Union flag has triggered industrial action on an inner-city Brisbane building site.

The fight erupted on April 11 when a contractor on the Brisbane Showgrounds site was asked to remove three flags that had been flying from three cranes “for some weeks”.

Within hours, 94 union members working on the luxury apartment construction site stopped work and allegedly told the site boss that, for every union flag removed from a Brisbane building site, unionists would raise two more.

Details of the dispute were revealed after the site owner, construction giant Lend Lease, went to the Fair Work Commission seeking an order stopping the strike.

Lend Lease construction manager Rodney Green told the commission two Lend Lease managers, who were also union members, told him the workers “were not happy about removing the flags”.

“They explained that the workforce had decided that for every flag Lend Lease directed to be removed, they would erect a further two in return,” he said.

Earlier, another Lend Lease manager had told two union members that Lend Lease believed flying the CFMEU flags “could ... breach freedom of association laws” so they needed to be taken down from the cranes at Bowen Hills.

CFMEU lawyer Ashley Borg told commissioner Jennifer Hunt that the removal of the CFMEU flags constituted a potential lockout by Lend Lease, which was unlawful.

Mr Borg argued the right to fly flags was part of the contract of employment, rather than being part of an enterprise agreement.

Six Lend Lease union members and 88 other union members who were subcontractors were alleged to have unlawfully stopped work on the site.

After a hearing late on the night of April 11, Ms Hunt ordered an end to the strike, saying employees were entitled to fly CFMEU flags in the workplace but only by agreement with the employer.

The workers were working on a 401-apartment project called The Yards, part of the RNA Showgrounds at Bowen Hills.

The case is set to return to the Fair Work Commission on April 29.