CFMEU demands driving crane company to the wall

An Adelaide crane firm is at risk of collapse with the loss of 150 jobs as a result of John Setka’s takeover of the South Australian branch of the CFMEU.

Crane Services director John Nicholls. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Naomi Jellicoe

An Adelaide crane firm is at risk of collapse with the loss of 150 jobs as a result of John Setka’s takeover of the South Australian branch of the CFMEU, which has hit the company with unprecedented pay demands.

Unionists are picketing Crane Services and work has stopped despite the company offering a 16 per cent pay rise and an extraordinary $10-a-day bonus for those who arrive for work on time and do not damage equipment.

The CFMEU is demanding a new enterprise agreement framed around a 25 per cent pay rise in a single year and has been picketing Crane Services every day this week.

The case looms as a headache for Premier Peter Malinauskas, who criticised the militant tactics of Mr Setka and promised to act if jobs and investment suffered after his formal takeover of the SA branch earlier this year.

His promise followed revelations by The Australian of a secret $125,000 donation by the Victorian CFMEU to SA Labor just three days before its March election victory – money which Mr Malinauskas instructed Labor to pay back.

But now, the worst predictions of the SA construction industry are being born out, with Crane Services director John Nicholls saying his business will be unable to operate under the demands sought by the union.

Crane Services has never had industrial trouble in its 40-year history but is now being frozen out of work as a result of the union’s tactics, with bigger construction firms opting to use the preferred crane companies of the CFMEU that have bowed to its preferred EBAs.

“The only reason all of this is happening is because John Setka has taken over and there is now a small minority who are causing disruption,” Mr Nicholls told The Australian. “We have always had good relations with our workers. I have never made anyone redundant in my life.

“Our total business is 78 people in our crane hire business, but all up there are 150 people here working in admin, and people are now asking … if they are still going to have a job.”

The Crane Services stand-off is one of several starting to unfold in Adelaide, where the CFMEU is trying to tear up existing enterprise agreements and shift to the more generous agreements the union insists upon in Victoria.

SA Opposition Leader David Speirs said that as a former union leader himself it was incumbent on Mr Malinauskas to use his authority to defuse the Crane Services dispute.

“The business simply cannot afford to go higher on the wage claim and they’re talking restructure and lay-offs,” Mr Speirs said.

“The intimidation has been huge. Peter Malinauskas is the kingpin of all unionists in SA and he should step in and sort it out.”

Local MBA chief executive Will Frogley said that under Mr Setka’s leadership the union was refusing to recognise that SA had historically been a lower-cost state than those on the east coast, with a calmer industrial environment. “What’s happening here with Crane Services is exactly what we have been warning about for months and has no place in SA,” Mr Frogley said.

Mr Malinauskas said he had spoken to Mr Nicholls on Thursday morning and he believed the dispute could be resolved with goodwill on both sides. He said the CFMEU should reflect on the generosity of the offer and sit down for talks.

“I have not spoken to the CFMEU, but my message to all concerned in this dispute is that workers are losing pay at the moment because they aren’t working and the business is losing money because it isn’t operating. That’s a lose-lose,” Mr Malinauskas said.

CFMEU state organiser Marcus Pare said workers had requested base rates of pay consistent with the company’s latest offer, but payable sooner than half a year’s time, and protection for rostered days off.