Company reveals personal information of Cross River Rail workers

In a bizarre move, the personal details of 173 Cross River Rail workers have been revealed by their employer as they were forced back to work.

Nearly 200 Cross River Rail subcontractors have been forced back to work after their employer successfully won a bid to stop them taking part in ongoing protests at the mega project.

But in a bizarre move UGL Rail Services, a sister company of CPB contractors, has publicly named 173 of its own workers and listed their personal home addresses in a court document.

The Fair Work Commission this week granted UGL Rail an order requiring their workers to return to worksites across the $6.3bn Cross River Rail project despite ongoing CFMEU-led strikes.

Under the order UGL Rail employees are effectively required to cross the picket line and go to work.

It comes amid ongoing protected strikes by CFMEU-aligned workers at Cross River Rail which has sparked chaos at the project, including delays which the Cross River Rail Delivery Authority has blamed for the Ekka train station being shut for the second year in a row.

UGL Rail, as part of the Fair Work order, was to publish the stop action order on its intranet, send the document individually to workers, and post the order at noticeboards on Cross River Rail work sites.

A CFMEU picket line at a Cross River Rail site in Roma St, Brisbane. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

In a bizarre move UGL Rail included the names and personal home address of 173 of its employees in the order.

The addresses of the workers are blanked out in the publicly available document, but it is understood versions of the document containing personal information was sent around to workers and published on the company’s website.

A UGL Rail worker, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said employees were perplexed and betrayed by the release of their personal information particularly in a workplace that had become increasingly incendiary.

At the end of July a Cross River Rail worker was allegedly assaulted outside his house after months earlier crossing a CFMEU picket line in a separate incident. Queensland Police confirmed no charges had yet been laid.

UGL Rail workers are largely electricians, plumbers and fitters. The Electrical Trades Union and Plumbers Union were contacted for comments.

UGL Rail’s parent company CIMIC was also contacted for comment on why publishing the addresses of workers was necessary. They did not respond by deadline.

A spokesman for the CFMEU accused UGL of publishing the personal details of workers as a “deliberate act of intimidation”.

“This is a scandalous breach of confidentiality by UGL,” he said.

Dozens of CFMEU members were observed sitting across from the entrance to the Roma Street Cross River Rail project site on Friday morning.

A marquee had been set up with multiple CFMEU flags lining a road island on Roma Street.

While the members were not protesting, placards were placed around the marquee which read “Say no to corporate greed” and “heat stress kills”.

It comes after Thursday’s announcement that nearly 200 Cross River Rail subcontractors would be forced to return to work after their employer won a bid to stop them taking part in ongoing protests at the project’s worksite.