Union boss claims CFMEU waged five-year harassment campaign culminating in death threat
She was allegedly threatened, followed and even berated in front of her child — now, a Queensland woman has detailed her life with a CFMEU target on her back.
The militant CFMEU allegedly threatened the life of a powerful Queensland union boss in a five-year campaign of threats and harassment that included being followed in a car, and berated in public in front of her young child.
Stacey Schinnerl, the first woman to lead the Queensland branch of the Australian Workers’ Union, has for the first time laid bare the impacts of the long-running war waged against her union by the CFMEU.
Ms Schinnerl, taking the stand for the Commission of Inquiry into the CFMEU and Misconduct in the Construction Industry, detailed how the industrial relations dispute over which union would oversee the multi-billion Cross River Rail project escalated into a sustained campaign of fear by the militant union.
Those actions, she told the inquiry, left her in a “perpetual heightened state of anxiety” and fearing for her family.
A visibly shaken Ms Schinnerl told the Inquiry she believed her life was in danger after an AWU delegate, Jayce Emmerton, was blocked from entering the Centenary Bridge worksite by masked CFMEU members in July 2023.
Ms Schinnerl told the Inquiry the men stopped Ms Emmerton at the gate and delivered a message to pass directly to her: “If I stick my head up it will be knocked off.”
“I took that to be a threat on my life,” she said.
She said the AWU had already cancelled a planned meeting that day after staff discovered their car tyres had been slashed.
Ms Schinnerl said AWU workers were subject to constant verbal abuse, stalking and low-grade bullying on civil construction sites at the hands of CFMEU members.
Organisers were regularly followed from worksites, sometimes filmed, sometimes trailed through city streets.
“The examples are so voluminous I can’t go through all of them,” she said.
“Calling our officials grubs or scabs, saying that the AWU is a f***ing disgrace, you’ve got no business here, those sorts of comments.”
Workers eventually asked the AWU to stop holding on-site meetings to avoid CFMEU harassment.
Ms Schinnerl said the February 2023 incident involving two CFMEU members breaking into the AWU office car park and plastering staff cars with stickers was “demoralising”.
While the stickers themselves seemed juvenile, Ms Schinnerl said the act had a “more sinister twist”.
“To my mind, it is a very loud message that the CFMEU is delivering to the AWU in that, you know, we know where you live, we can get to you,” she said.
Ms Schinnerl told the Inquiry the conflict stemmed from the long-running battle over union coverage in civil construction, known as the “horizontal” part of the industry involving roads, rail, power and water infrastructure.
The AWU has broad industry coverage that allows it to represent all workers on a civil project while the CFMEU coverage is generally limited to specific occupations such as carpenters, crane drivers or excavator operators, Ms Schinnerl said.
“But last time I checked, you can’t build a road with crane drivers and carpenters,” she said.
The partial overlap created “a regular source of antagonism,” between the two unions, with the CFMEU looking to expand its foothold on civil works.
Ms Schinnerl told the Inquiry that tensions escalated dramatically after she became AWU Queensland secretary in 2022 — the first woman ever to hold the role.
She believed the CFMEU assumed she could be pushed aside.
“Perhaps a female leader would be easy to roll, with enough pressure applied, I might just give up and give it to them,” she said.
Ms Schinnerl said her relationship with former CFMEU boss Michael Ravbar broke down in 2022 when he allegedly took personal insult from a speech she made at Labor’s State Conference, which was held in Brisbane.
In the speech she made reference to the Transport and Main Roads department headquarters in the Brisbane CBD being “the most dangerous workplace for occupational violence” after CFMEU members stormed the building, smashing windows and injuring a security guard two months earlier.
Her intention, she told the Inquiry, was to highlight the “hypocrisy” of a union that loudly campaigns on workplace safety while engaging in occupational violence.
“It’s nothing to be made light of, those public servants were terrified. If I have one regret, it is probably the fact that I joked about it,” she said.
Ms Schinnerl said she was later told Mr Ravbar stormed out of the room and arranged a meeting the following week to concoct plans to “take down the AWU”.
“I’ve been told by many sources that Mr Ravbar has identified that particular moment as myself starting a war with the CFMEU with the comment that I made,” Ms Schinnerl told the Inquiry.
She said the CFMEU always had plans to start war with the AWU but “I provided an opening and an excuse”.
Tensions escalated when the AWU began negotiating the two enterprise agreements for above-ground and tunnelling works at the Cross River Rail sites with contractor CPB.
Ms Schinnerl said the CFMEU was “desperate” to break into tunnelling, a civil coverage domain the AWU has monopolised for decades.
Cross River Rail worksites quickly became a union battleground with CFMEU members frequently protesting poor worksite conditions under the AWU agreements.
Some of the incidents turned violent.
The severe disruption to works -which included blockades- in part, contributed to the project blowing out to $17bn, with works now not scheduled for completion until 2029.
Ms Schinnerl accused the CFMEU of recruiting members it was unauthorised to provide coverage for.
“The CFMEU does not have coverage of all construction in the civil sector, civil and engineering sector,” she said.
“It does not have industry coverage in local government, similar blue collar workers. It does not have off-site trade and non-trade industry coverage.
“The CFMEU selling a membership ticket to a worker outside the coverage of that union is the equivalent of selling them a very expensive concert ticket for a concert that you can never attend.
“It’s preying on worker’s vulnerability. You’re selling them a dream.”
Ms Schinnerl continues giving evidence in the witness box on Thursday.
Originally published as Union boss claims CFMEU waged five-year harassment campaign culminating in death threat
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