More projects hit by fury among unions in Victoria over spying at desalination project

UNION anger over spying at a Victorian desalination project has spread, with 300 workers walking off the job at two Melbourne construction sites.

Workers at the desalination plant at Wonthaggi in Victoria walk off the site after a union meeting today. Picture: Aaron Francis

UNION anger over spying at a Victorian desalination project has spread, with 300 workers walking off the job at two Melbourne construction sites, officials said.

Union officials said the action was in support of workers building Victoria's $5.4 billion desalination project at Wonthaggi, where construction is unlikely to resume until Monday at the earliest over revelations contractor Thiess hired a spy to investigate employees.

Workers involved on Melbourne's M80 ring-road upgrade and a new railway station at Newport also walked off the job today, according to the CFMEU, the union which covers the construction, forestry, forest products, mining and energy production industries.

The Victorian secretary of the CFMEU's construction division, Bill Oliver, said about 300 workers in total walked off the job in support of the desalination plant workers.

Earlier today, workers at Wonthaggi downed tools for a second day running amid attempts to placate union fury over the spying scandal.

Construction company Thiess was holding crisis talks in Melbourne today with the Electrical Trades Union, the Construction Forestry, Mining and Energy Union and other unions in an urgent attempt to resolve the industrial dispute at the $5.4 billion plant.

 Tensions erupted at the construction site this week after The Australian revealed that joint venture partners Thiess Degremont had hired the man known by unions as “Australia's number 1 scab”, Tasmanian Bruce Townsend, to carry out covert surveillence of employees and contractors at the plant.

Thiess has admitted to its arrangement with Mr Townsend, code-named the Pluto Project, but has described it as highly unusual and inppropriate, and maintains company executives had no knowledge of the surveillence operation.

The two Victorian managers at the centre of the scandal, Greg Miller and Marcus Carroll, have been stood down pending an internal company investigation. There is currently no evidence of any wrongdoing by Mr Miller or Mr Carroll.

The Australian Building and Construction Commissioner is also conducting an investigation into the arrangement, and Victoria's privacy commissioner has sought an urgent briefing from the consortium that contracted Thiess Degremont, AquaSure.

The CFMEU's Mr Oliver earlier said unions would be demanding in today's meeting that any information gathered relating to union members be returned, that Mr Miller and Mr Carroll be sacked, and that Thiess reveal to the unions the exact workings of the Pluto Project.

Workers would not return to work unless these demands were met, Mr Oliver said.

“We would be hoping to get a good explanation of why they believed it was necessary to bring on this strike-force organisation when there have been no industrial problems on site,” Mr Oliver told The Australian Online.

“Our demands are still there and we are still sticking with these demands at the moment.”

Mr Oliver said if Thiess was prepared to meet union demands, work may resume at the plant as early as Monday.

But the ETU was taking a harder line, with Victorian secretary Dean Mighell describing the desalination project as “dead”, in view of the seriousness of Thiess's betrayal of workers.

Workers this morning attended the desalination site in Wonthaggi, on Victoria's Bass coast, at 7am. Union representatives then told the workers to go home until Monday.

Workers left the site at 9 am, many on the phone to family members telling them of the extended long weekend.

Workers approached by The Australian Online declined to reveal what Thiess management had told them, or if the company had apologised for breaching employees' privacy.

Additional reporting: AAP