Militant union led by CFMEU Victorian boss John Setka gears up to strike

CFMEU boss John Setka.

CFMEU Victorian boss John Setka’s bolshie strike threat suggests the militant union has been emboldened by Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke’s one-sided workplace relations changes. “We don’t want a bloody-minded civil war that’s going to just cost the industry but sometimes it’s unavoidable, sometimes you have got to shed a bit of blood to just make peace,” Mr Setka said on Friday. Ahead of a new enterprise agreement to be worked out with builders next week, he has told members to put money away because it could be “a long blue” – to the detriment, no doubt, of taxpayer-funded infrastructure projects, major commercial construction and home building. Mr Setka said a survey of 14,048 members showed 87 per cent were prepared to take industrial action to achieve an annual pay rise of 4 per cent “or more”. The union also wants big increases in allowances for travel, tools, boots and protective clothing, linked to inflation.

“We know the industry is not in a good place at the moment with the cost of all the materials going up, and some of these people going broke,” Mr Setka told workplace editor Ewin Hannan. “But in the end we want a ­decent pay rise, we want a decent EBA, and we’re going to claw back all the stuff the Libs took off us and we’re going to claw it back in this EBA, and we’re going to whack it all back in, and if it upsets people, f..king bad luck.” Union members “have got the wind in the sails at the moment”, he said.

So has the union itself. It is the biggest beneficiary of super fund income streams, banking $4.47m in 2021-22 and $33.65m across 16 years according to data compiled by NSW Liberal senator Andrew Bragg.

While the union is spoiling for a fight, a responsible government, cognisant of productivity and the importance of containing building costs, would discourage that approach. Depending on the duration of any dispute, experience shows protracted strikes would drive up building costs and consumer prices, add to inflation and worsen the housing and rental crisis.

But after abolishing the Australian Building and Construction ­Commission, the Albanese ­government’s options are limited. And the Coalition’s building code, which prevented employers from ­agreeing to insert different clauses into agreements if they wanted to stay eligible for commonwealth building work, no longer applies. Mr Setka said the union would push to ­reinstate clauses requiring ­employers to convert casuals to permanent employment, limit the use of labour hire and engage more apprentices. Restricting labour hire reflects the government’s “same job, same pay” workplace relations legislation introduced to parliament this week. But the militant union is gearing up to get in ahead of the bill, which is now unlikely to pass the Senate, possibly with major amendments, for at least six months. It has been referred to a Senate committee inquiry scheduled to report by February 1.

The legislation’s retrospective anti-avoidance measures are already causing confusion and concern among employers and influencing hiring decisions, the Business Council of Australia said this week. Mr Burke told parliament “broad anti-avoidance protections … will stop businesses deliberately changing and manipulating their operations to try to get around these new ­obligations”. The bill also contains at least 13 different start dates for various measures across the next 15 months. If Anthony Albanese and Mr Burke thought pro-union reforms would help workplace relations, they were wrong. Emboldening the CFMEU will cost the economy and the government’s budget bottom line.