Union workplace chaos costing us all, says Prime Minister

THE CFMEU has been accused by the PM of treating breaches of workplace laws like “parking tickets”, with its activities pushing up project costs, amounting to a “lawless tax”.

THE “lawless” construction industry accounted for two in three of 24,500 working days lost in about 60 disputes in just four months, new data reveals.

Nationally in the June quarter, almost 20 days were lost for each 1000 workers on construction sites. This was about nine times the rate of disputes in other industries.

In federal parliament yesterday, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull took fresh aim at the militant Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, accusing it of treating breaches of workplace laws like “parking tickets”.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Picture: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

He warned that the union’s activities on building sites pushed up the cost of projects to everyday Australians, and so amounted to a “lawless tax”.

Victoria, with 2.3 days lost for every 1000 workers, had the nation’s second-highest totals of days lost across all sectors, trailing only Queensland, where the CFMEU has admitted it has deliberately set out to cause maximum disruption at a Commonwealth Games site.

Mr Turnbull justified his government’s attempts to pass its Registered Organisations Bill — which attempts to impose the same disclosure and transparency obligations on union officials as exist for company directors — by referring to the 113 CFMEU officials now before courts for more than 1100 alleged law breaches.

In one case, the union and its Victorian and Tasmanian branch president were fined $245,000 for trying to coerce a scaffolding company to hire a CFMEU shop steward.

The Federal Court heard branch president Ralph Edwards instructed workers to prevent the company from entering sites until it complied with union demands.

In May, a union official was fined $18,000 for blocking a concrete delivery to the $4.3 billion Regional Rail Link site after he asked that the site manager put on a CFMEU delegate. This wasted 24.4 cubic metres of concrete.

Ralph Edwards speaks at a CFMEU meeting. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

And in July, the union and six officials were fined $178,450 for organising a picket at a Docklands site and disrupting work for three days in a dispute with a construction company.

A number of officials are also facing court action over alleged threats, unauthorised work stoppages and blockades.

Labor employment spokesman Brendan O’Connor accused the government of lies to justify an “anti-worker, anti-union ideological agenda”.

“This lazy and incompetent government has argued that workplace breaches in the construction industry have increased when the truth … is that they have actually decreased this year,” he said.

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