Holdout fears not signing CFMEU deal will prove costly

Canberra builder Nigel Forde has taken a stand against the construction union but the decision could cost him work.

Canberra builder Nigel Forde fears not signing a CFMEU deal will cost him work. Picture: Ray Strange.

Canberra builder Nigel Forde has taken a stand against the construction union.

Mr Forde, the owner of Cord Civil, a contractor in Hume in the ACT with a workforce of 60 he employs directly, has refused to sign up to the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union’s pattern bargaining agreement.

The decision could cost him work and create other problems, with reports of bullying and harassment on worksites in the ACT.

Mr Forde, who signed up to the union’s last agreement, told The Australian the CFMEU’s proposed deal was “unsustainable”.

Weekend lockdowns mandated by the union agreement made it difficult to complete jobs on time for the past three years when he was covered by the previous deal, Mr Forde said.

“We’re not a nine-to-five indus­try, we’re blocking major roads and potentially inconveniencing the public during a project, and if you’re doing that plus managing the guys on 36-hour weeks, and throw in inclement weather and public holidays, there’s not a lot of time to finish the job,” he said. “The old agreement was 4 per cent yearly increases and the new one is 5 per cent, which is unsustainable, and well above inflation.

“But the main issue that our workforce is overwhelmingly in favour of is to do away with lockdown weekends: they want flexibility, they want to take the RDOs when they want to take them, not when the union decrees.”

Mr Forde is one of more than 20 builders who has vowed not to sign the deal, which stipul­ates pay rises of at least 5 per cent a year for three years — the same pattern as in the union’s deals in Victoria and Queensland, taken up by some of the nation’s biggest builders.

A draft proposal circulated in South Australia demanded a 6 per cent wage rise.

Mr Forde also said the 36-hour week demanded by the CFMEU was also impractical on modern building sites.

Master Builders ACT, which has been encouraging contractors not to sign up to the CFMEU deal, has also warned that it means they could be excluded from working on Canberra’s largest construction project, the $760 million light rail.

Mr Forde said he accepted the risk, even though “the CFMEU has a lot of power in the industry (and) some of our clients would look favourably at companies that have union agreements”.

The lead contractor on the light rail project, John Holland, has signed the CFMEU contract.

In its ACT budget submission last week, Master Builders described the ACT government’s­ appointment of John Holland as “a union deal that effectively excludes the major­ity of Canberra’s construction teams”.

The government has denied vetoing contractors on the basis of their union status. The company declined to comment.

Jennifer Wyborn, a Partner at Clayton Utz, said industrial relations lawyers were helping more businesses draft their own agreements in the wake of the Heydon royal commission, which brought allegations of threats, bullying and intimidation by the CFMEU over signing deals into the open.

“It used to be just a brave few that were prepared to negotiate with the union in relation to agreements that were presented to them,’’ she said. “Now, more companies are coming to us and saying: ‘Do I have to sign this?’ ” .

The CFMEU has boasted that more than 100 builders were set to sign the deal, and has vigorously denied allegations of coercion.