CFMMEU in fresh turmoil as Setka-led bloc votes out national leader

The CFMMEU is in danger of splitting, with a majority of the union's national executive voting to call on its leader Michael O’Connor to resign.

The push to force out Mr O’Connor as national secretary has been supported by the construction division of the union and Victorian leader John Setka.

John Setka wants Michael O'Connor goneCredit: AAP

Supporters of Mr O’Connor said Mr Setka had been unhappy with Mr O’Connor after he failed to publicly support him following Mr Setka’s conviction last year on charges of harassing his wife.

Mr O’Connor did not return calls and senior figures in the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union said it was unclear if the national executive had the power to force out its leader. He has so far refused to stand down. Mr Setka has been approached for comment.

Mr O’Connor has two years left on his term and if he does not resign, the dispute could head to the courts, multiple union sources said. He is the brother of senior federal Labor frontbencher Brendan O'Connor and influential in Labor and the union movement.

The push to remove Mr O’Connor was discussed at Thursday’s national executive meeting. The vote calling on him to resign was backed by the construction and maritime divisions, while mining and manufacturing opposed it, multiple sources said.

CFMMEU national secretary Michael O'Connor. Credit: AAP

Mr Setka told the national executive meeting he had lost confidence in Mr O'Connor after the national secretary told him that he thought the union-busting Ensuring Integrity Bill was inevitable.

“I was actually f---ing shocked at that to be quite honest, pardon the ‘f’ words and all that,” sources say he told the meeting.

“I just thought it was a pretty shitty attitude.”

Mr Setka also told the meeting there was too much division in the union and he felt “betrayed”.

“There’s been a lot of shit has been said, there’s been a lot of backstabbing going on,” he said. “If you are going to throw a rock at me, I’ll throw a mountain back.”

Christy Cain, an official with the union's maritime division and a strong supporter of Mr Setka, was proposed as a replacement national leader.

“Michael’s position is untenable,” Mr Cain told the meeting, sources said. “We are looking like a gang of rabble.

“I don’t need to do this, I'm elected for three years … I don't need it," Mr Cain said. "So I'm not doing it for money and I'm not saying it for anything else other [than] to move the union forward.

John Setka, left, with ACTU secretary Sally McManus and Christy Cain. 

“If we don’t, we are finished.”

Mr Cain told the meeting that Mr O’Connor had a conflict between his dual roles as national and manufacturing secretary at the CFMMEU.

It was the first meeting of the national executive in almost a year.

A leak of comments from last year's meeting, along with another leak in 2019 of graphic details of Mr Setka’s harassment of his wife created deep divisions in the union.

The manufacturing division and the Victorian construction division have been in the Federal Court over the alleged poaching of manufacturing division members by construction.

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