He’s not a union heavy — he’s just a bloke among blokes

And sometimes the CFMEU parlays the toiler’s trade into first-rate blue-collar poetry.

It’s not only Bill Shorten who has plans for the ALP. Last Monday’s front page, The Australian:

CFMEU in video threat to Bill ­Shorten

Union leaders have been caught on video boasting of a plan to “take ownership” of the Labor Party and impose their will on its policies, sending a warning shot to Bill Shorten that they will replace politicians who stand in their way. The construction union ­officials vow to use their power in the ALP to install politicians they want, assuring members that “change is happening” and the union is getting its way. The video fuels the row over union power as Malcolm Turnbull ­accuses the Opposition Leader of ­defending the peak construction union rather than condemning it for the “lawlessness” that has seen more than 100 of its officials face court.

Could this be true, is CFMEU influence on the rise? On the ABC Insiders program yesterday journalist Barrie Cassidy put the question to Shorten, whose answer was:

No, what two blokes say on a YouTube home video ... Let’s be straight here — there’s a couple of people talking to their friends on a YouTube video. They don’t give us orders.

Just a couple of blokes bloking about? More from The Australian:

The video shows CFMEU ­assistant state secretary for Western Australia Graham Pallot and national president Joe McDonald telling workers they are increasing their sway over Labor as a ­result of their numbers. “We’re getting influence in the ALP and that’s how we’re going to get in there ... we’re going to put politicians in that are representative of the working class ... Let’s get real outcomes out of the ALP. Let’s don’t piss-fart around anymore. Let’s go in and ­demand our outcomes.”

A couple of blokes, a band of brothers. The Australian, January 1:

Labor’s workplace relations spokesman Brendan O’Connor has been ­accused of “running lines on behalf of his brother”, the militant construction union leader ­Michael O’Connor, as he delivered scorching criticism of Royal Commissioner Dyson Heydon yesterday.

Shorten might put up with the CFMEU but Bob Hawke wouldn’t. The Australian, January 1:

Bob Hawke has called on the Labor Party and the ACTU to consider cutting ties with the scandal-plagued Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, while Paul Keating has warned that trade union influence inside the party must be reduced. The two former Labor prime ministers ... have told The Australian they are appalled by the evidence of systemic union corruption, and urged union leaders to refocus on the national economic interest. Mr Hawke, who as prime minister deregistered the rogue ­Builders’ Labourers Federation in 1986, said Labor and the ACTU must embrace reforms to improve union governance and transparency. “The unions need to clean up their act and get their house in order,” Mr Hawke said. “It just is appalling. I mean, I wouldn’t tolerate it. You know what I did with the Builders’ Labourers Federation — I would throw them out.”

But the CFMEU is not all bad. Union website, 2011:

CFMEU member, crane operator and poet!

CFMEU member Peter Utber or Yachty Pete, as he likes to be known, has just returned from a job at the mining town of Moranbah ... in Queensland. Peter was operating cranes and other machinery on the job. But he also “penned a poem for the scaffs, which tells the story of a day in a scaffolder’s life”.