Bikies ran amok in the CFMEU, and they’re not going to leave quietly

On an unseasonably cool spring morning last week, the man with one of the toughest jobs in Australia requested urgent help from a security firm led by an ex-special forces soldier.

For weeks, a personal security detail has shadowed Mark Irving, KC, after police warnings he was to be the subject of a death threat designed to destabilise his attempted reform of Australia’s building industry as the newly appointed CFMEU administrator.

But his recent request for security wasn’t for his safety. Rather, union organisers now working for Irving are facing threats of their own.

CFMEU administrator Mark Irving, KC, has called in ex-soldiers as security.Credit: Joe Armao

Sources close to the union said they emanated from a clique of violent gangland figures aligned with a bikie once considered a key ally of the CFMEU, Joel Leavitt.

By 2023, Leavitt wielded significant industrial muscle as a union delegate on two of the Victorian Labor government’s signature Big Build projects: the $530 million Hurstbridge train line upgrade and the Metro Tunnel rail project.

He was overseen by, and on occasion claimed to fellow workers to be carrying out the industrial orders of, a union boss called Joe Myles. Myles, like Leavitt, had worked for the CFMEU in Queensland before moving to the union’s Victorian operation.

Leavitt lost his formal CFMEU support weeks after he was shot at a bikie clubhouse in 2023, but his informal union networks were crippled only after the Building Bad scandal erupted in July and previous backers, such as union executive Myles, were abruptly sacked.

Leavitt’s crew began looking for alternative sources of income, pressuring building industry insiders as they did so. Pushback from still-serving union organisers sparked warnings of violent reprisals.

With threats also made in NSW and Queensland, Irving felt obligated to urgently deploy small teams of highly trained former military and police officers outside CFMEU headquarters around the nation.

This masthead can reveal the union’s national secretary, Zach Smith, privately addressed union officials last week, warning them that if they sided with those now threatening CFMEU organisers, they would be summarily dismissed. It signalled a major shift in the CFMEU’s stance.

Irving and Smith would not comment for this story, but their responses have been relayed to this masthead by multiple sources inside the union and who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of blowback.

Five sources who have had dealings with Leavitt, and who requested anonymity, also briefed this masthead for this story.

When the CFMEU scandal erupted in July, the union initially claimed that bikies were given jobs as its delegates as a means of rehabilitation.

Several people in the union knew this was untrue because they had witnessed bikies or other gangland figures disregard the CFMEU’s interests to line their pockets, sometimes turning on union members as they did so.

They had also seen these self-interested bikies increasingly become part of the union furniture.

Vicious violence, such as an alleged bashing in December of a union delegate by one of Leavitt’s lieutenants, who was himself a CFMEU representative on Victoria’s Big Build, had met with indifference from some in the union.

But Smith’s rhetorical shift last week signalled that influential CFMEU figures were prepared to acknowledge a reality as grim as it was obvious for those now facing threats.

By embedding gangland figures like Leavitt within a key sector of Australia’s economy via state government and other projects and empowering them with the union’s raw industrial strength, the CFMEU created a risk for itself if the bikies’ revenue streams were threatened.

The Leavitt crew’s recent agitation, along with Smith’s warning to those with divided loyalties, suggests that this threat had finally materialised.

A number of recently sacked union executives privately acknowledge things went too far (one of them has taken to carrying a pistol for protection, according to his friends).

A CFMEU blame game has erupted, with Myles’ so-called “Irish” union faction being accused of wrongdoing by those loyal to sacked union bosses such as Elias Spernovasilis, who has his own deep underworld ties.

Myles has stayed quiet, although he continues to deal regularly with influential organisers who are still employed by the union and meant to be working solely for Smith and Irving.

Just how bad things got prior to Irving’s administration remains unknown, but it is increasingly clear that the union was slowly strangling itself.

In NSW, the CFMEU became a fiefdom promoting gangster-aligned companies with appalling worker safety records. Organisers who objected were warned to stay quiet.

In NSW and Victoria, labour hire companies exploded on the union’s watch despite being anathema to secure working conditions that are the CFMEU’s raison d’etre.

This was cheered on by bikie bosses using the firms to place gang members on government projects. Right up the east coast, the threat of violence was real and omnipresent.

This raises damning questions about how governments – particularly Victoria’s Labor government – let it all get so bad.

Why were taxpayers funding projects that bankrolled bikies and made union bosses arguably more powerful than the public servants meant to be running the show? And who in power, if anyone, will be held accountable?

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When workers employed by the Southern Project Alliance (SPA) encountered Joel Leavitt in early 2023, they typically pondered an immediate and pressing question.

Why was a tattooed, muscle-bound bikie, who had done a historical stint in jail in Brisbane, now working as a union representative, let alone one responsible for health and safety of employees at companies delivering more than $4 billion worth of work on Labor’s rail level-crossing removal program?

On paper, Leavitt was employed through union-backed labour hire firms, such as Top Up and OCC, and was ultimately paid by the Victorian taxpayer.

In practice, he answered to two separate sources of power: the Rebels bikie gang and the CFMEU.

Union sources say Leavitt’s delegate role on the crossing removal project was supported by Myles. Their personal relationship developed about six years ago via young union activist networks.

Myles wielded the CFMEU’s industrial power on the Victorian government’s signature Big Build projects via a small team of union organisers, delegates and health and safety representatives like Leavitt.

Many in the CFMEU suspected Myles was building a powerbase to take over the union when incumbent leader and rival John Setka departed. The two weren’t so different.

Former CFMEU Victorian secretary John Setka.Credit: Eamon Gallagher

Like Setka, Myles has a history of unlawful conduct, with the Federal Court finding he has breached workplace laws more than 20 times, engaging in coercion, obstruction and illegal stoppages, and not complying with safety laws.

In a 2017, former Federal Court judge Richard Tracey found Myles had “a deplorable personal history of offending” stretching back to 2010.

Whereas Setka had spent two decades giving his imprimatur to underworld figure Mick Gatto (effectively making him the CFMEU’s favoured industrial relations fixer), Myles appeared to have his own heavies in his union camp.

Myles oversaw several bikie-linked figures like Leavitt working in union roles.

One was Big Build organiser and former Queenslander Marty Albert, who in late 2023 was charged over a pub bashing and named by police in court (in a still unresolved case) as the sergeant-at-arms of the Bandidos’ Melbourne chapter.

Working alongside Leavitt as purported union health and safety representatives on the $530 million Southern Project Alliance Hurstridge rail line upgrade were two other hard men: ex-bikie and convicted killer Johnny “Two Guns” Walker and Charlie Farrugia.

Johnny “Two Guns” Walker (right) with Hells Angels figure Luke Moloney.Credit: Instagram

Walker was jailed for bashing a man to death before being welcomed into the union as one of Myles’ Big Build delegates.

This masthead can reveal that in December, Farrugia allegedly brutally bashed another union delegate aligned to the Setka camp.

Images of the attack and its bloody aftermath have been obtained by this masthead (Farrugia is yet to face trial and there is no suggestion he is guilty).

The alleged attack in December 2023 was caught on CCTV.

In 2022 and the first half of 2023, Leavitt, Farrugia and Walker worked as a CFMEU triumvirate on the Hurstbridge line upgrade, issuing demands laced with the menace of union action or bikie intervention.

Southern Project Alliance workers were meant to vote in Farrugia, Walker and Leavitt as union representatives, but in reality they were forced onto SPA’s payroll by the CFMEU, according to multiple sources.

“As soon as we discovered their bikie links, no one on the level crossing project wanted to challenge them,” a project insider said. “It was safer and easier to give in to them than fight their every demand.”

The alleged attack victim suffered serious injuries.

According to sources who worked with him, Leavitt’s role extended well beyond his health and safety remit. He demanded major state government contractors pay disputed debts to union friendly subcontractors.

Back at union headquarters, Myles made similar demands.

One source, who requested anonymity for fear of blowback, said Myles not only threatened industrial action but shut down work on multiple Big Build projects to force the payment of contested debts.

A second source said Leavitt claimed previously to have been passing on “Joe’s orders”.

Myles declined to comment and the extent to which he was expressly directing Leavitt in the past, if at all, is unclear. This masthead is not suggesting Myles had any involvement in directing the latest threats to union organisers.

While Leavitt was ultimately overseen by Myles, there is also no suggestion that Myles endorsed any allegedly unlawful actions by Leavitt, including threatening or standover behaviour.

It is indisputable that the CFMEU empowered Leavitt on his Big Build beat. On work sites, Leavitt, Farrugia, and, to a lesser extent, Walker, pressed contractors to hire or pay additional wages to their associates and relatives, including several criminals and bikies, via labour hire companies aligned with the union.

This masthead has obtained a list of workers circulated by Farrugia for special treatment along with a list of labour hire companies that employed them.

At the head of the list is Top Up Labour, which was repeatedly promoted by the CFMEU, but it includes other union-backed labour hire firms OCC and Women In Construction, which also have underworld links.

The SPA acquiesced to some but not all of these requests. For instance, it was forced to place Leavitt and Farrugia’s associates in jobs that were surplus to project requirements, out of fear of retribution.

According to project insiders, the only silver lining was that as labour hire firm placements they were “easy to sack”.

The wages they were paid before that point were ultimately funded by the Victorian taxpayer.

Leaked documents show that the SPA, along with contractors on other Big Build projects, was forced into paying certain workers daily wage increases of up to 400 per cent over the 2023 Easter break because they would be working over a holiday weekend and because it was raining.

This meant bikies and relatives and friends of Leavitt could earn up to $4000 in a single day for menial tasks.

The union argued this lucrative arrangement was endorsed in the industrial agreement covering the Big Build. At least two major contractors insisted it wasn’t, but they paid it anyway.

When Leavitt and Farrugia demanded a free souvlaki day for workers, the SPA agreed and paid a company of Leavitt’s choosing to deliver the food, even though the potential for corruption was obvious.

Leavitt also demanded SPA member Metro Trains stop using a small business because it was not CFMEU-endorsed. Metro relented and the firm was forced off the project.

Leavitt and Farrugia were also in dispute with rival bikie-gang-aligned figures on the rail level crossing project, sparking concerns that workers might be caught up in bikie violence.

In one incident described by two insiders, a group of Comancheros arrived on a government site to face off with gang members aligned to Leavitt.

“We almost had a bikie war,” one insider recalled.

To defuse tensions between rival gangs, the union ultimately removed a bikie as a delegate from the site, shifting him to the North East Link Big Build project.

In March 2023, Leavitt used an SPA vehicle, given to him for his union health and safety duties, to attend a Rebels bikie clubhouse in suburban Melbourne.

A dispute erupted and Leavitt was shot, subsequently using the SPA car to race himself to hospital.

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In late 2023, Farrugia allegedly brutally bashed a fellow union delegate aligned to the Setka CFMEU faction over what police have alleged was “a neighbour dispute”.

While this was ostensibly unconnected to union business, that Farrugia had allegedly turned on a fellow union representative sparked another clash at CFMEU headquarters.

“Some officials thought Farrugia should remain a HSR [health and safety representative], even though he had been charged [over allegedly bashing] someone who was also serving the union,” a union insider said.

Ultimately, Farrugia and Leavitt would both be forced from their roles.

Leavitt moved on to other building sites after the shooting (one source suggested the CFMEU removed him from the Big Build). Farrugia was forced out of his union post once charges were laid over the alleged bashing.

Bandido sergeant at arms Marty Albert and ex-bikie Johnny Walker would lose their union posts after the Building Bad series broke in July.

So too would Joe Myles, who was sacked along with a host of other senior union executives, including several also accused of enabling bikies, including senior Mongols and Hells Angels, and other gangland types.

Myles still commands fierce loyalty from those ostensibly serving administrator Mark Irving and Zach Smith.

Video footage from mid-October obtained by this masthead shows Myles meeting for an hour with still-serving Big Build CFMEU organiser and close friend Gerry McQuaid, just before McQuaid met with the major contractor running the $26 billion North East Link, a state and federally funded project.

There is no suggestion Myles was doing anything but socialising, but the situation raises questions about influence at the union.

Another former Myles camp figure and influential Big Build organiser, Gerry McCrudden, has also retained his role as a union official.

CFMEU organiser Gerry McCrudden was caught on video saying firms that didn’t work with the union would be blacklisted.

McCrudden was covertly filmed in 2022 warning that firms without the union’s backing – in the form of CFMEU-endorsed enterprise bargaining agreements – would be unofficially black-banned from Big Build sites.

Irving’s administration is partly paralysed by a High Court challenge funded by breakaway unions and backed by select sacked CFMEU bosses.

Union insiders tip that Myles and other sacked leaders hope to return to their positions if the High Court rules the administration unlawful.

The legal impasse has left Irving no choice but to retain union organisers loyal to the previous leadership around the country.

Leavitt remains active in the building industry, but appears now to be focused less on union power and more on making money.

Sources have named Leavitt’s crew as behind the threats which forced Irving to scramble security. Two union sources said it was suspected the threats were linked to the organisers’ refusal to support a Leavitt-backed subcontractor.

Other gangland figures entrenched in the building industry, including fixers Mick Gatto, Billy Mitris and Faruk Orman, along with a host of large companies, labour hire firms and subcontractors, are also adapting to a rapidly changing environment marked by instability and a power vacuum.

For his part, ex-bikie gang boss Tyrone Bell is now promoting a building industry health and safety firm run by former CFMEU organiser Jaxson Mahy.

Zach Smith, who has also taken over the Victorian branch, has called on his organisers to cut off the bikies and begun a wind back in the promotion of labour hire firms

Any thorough clean-up effort will need to unpick how the CFMEU was able to gain near complete control on government projects along Australia’s east coast.

The Minns government in NSW, as relative newcomers, can blame the former Coalition administration. But for Victoria’s Allan government, mounting questions about whether it ceded control of signature projects to the CFMEU loom as a potential political nightmare.

As with every Big Build contracting conglomerate, the SPA was required to report industrial relations disputation to the public servants at the rail level crossing removal authority, who in turn briefed the Labor government and transport minister – who, until she became premier, was Jacinta Allan.

Sources have said that rival unions, including the Australian Workers’ Union and the manufacturing wing of the CFMEU, reported concerns about improper activity on the Big Build to public servants and to Labor ministers.

“The [Big Build] public servants definitely were told. And it’s their job to tell the minister,” a well-connected building industry adviser said.

On Wednesday, Allan insisted the government had no tolerance for illegal activity, had introduced anti-consorting laws to get bikies off building sites and backed Irving’s administration after the Building Bad scandal broke.

She also said the government was expecting the final report by former public servant Greg Wilson, who Labor commissioned to examine aspects of the scandal, within days.

Joe Myles’ wife, Elizabeth Doidge, is influential in the Labor Party. She previously worked as the CFMEU’s political officer, a role in which she had extensive dealings with the Victorian government as she sought to advance the union’s agenda.

Doidge declined to comment when approached by this masthead. But she was less reticent in 2020, when she was elected to the Melbourne City Council with the help of a $195,838 CFMEU donation. Back then, she said the union wanted a place on council so it could “influence policy” and “play a part in the city that we built”.

With Kieran Rooney

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