BY MICK BULL
& SUE BOLTON
The campaign by the construction division of the Construction, Forestry,
Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) to extend the 36-hour working week to all
building workers, regardless of which state they happen to be working in,
is continuing, with a 10-day strike by building workers beginning in Queensland
on February 26.
Three branches of the union have already won the 36-hour week — Victoria,
Western Australia and the ACT.
The CFMEU's Victorian branch was the first to initiate a serious campaign
for a 36-hour work week during its 2000 enterprise bargaining campaign. 
After
a militant campaign, the branch won an agreement with employers to phase
in the 36-hour week over three years.
In the branch's 2002 pattern bargaining agreement with the construction
bosses, the final implementation of the 36-hour week was agreed to as well
as a 12.2% pay rise. Two-thousand employers in Victoria have signed the
new agreement.
The 36-hour week agreement in Victoria means that building workers get
26 rostered days off (RDOs) each year and the building industry across
Victoria shuts down on those days. The Victorian branch also won an agreement
with employers for seven no-work weekends attached to RDOs each year.
In addition to the 26 RDOs, there is also a cap on the number of hours
which building workers can work in any week. They still work a lot of hours
each week, but under the agreement, no employer can force workers to work
more than 56 hours in any week.
In an interview with Green Left Weekly in July, CFMEU construction
division Victorian president John Cummins described the Victorian branch's
victory as a “civilising of the industry”. Prior to the agreement, “there
was no ceiling on overtime. Job sites were working seven days a week, all
hours of the day.”
In November and December, the Victorian-based Grocon construction company
fought a short-lived campaign against the new enterprise bargaining agreement
(EBA) with the 36-hour week. Grocon organised a ballot of all its workers
in a bid to force them to accept a non-union agreement which allowed for
unlimited overtime. The workers rejected the agreement and threatened industrial
action to win their demands. In the end, Grocon surrendered and signed
up to the CFMEU's EBA.
However, a gain such as the 36-hour week could be taken away unless
it is extended nationally, so a proposal was put to the CFMEU construction
division national conference in 2001 for the 36-hour week to be incorporated
into all state branches' EBA campaigns. This was adopted and the demand
for a 36-hour week was included in the union's national log of claims.
Towards the end of 2002, employers in Western Australia and the ACT
cracked and agreed to a 36-hour week.
In WA in November, 136 companies signed up to an EBA that phases in
the 36-hour week over three years. Among these 136 companies are national
builders, large state builders and many sub-contractors. More than 90%
of the WA branch’s members are covered by this agreement.
However, a number of middle- and small-sized builders are resisting
the CFMEU's campaign and have pooled resources to bring charges against
union organisers for alleged breaches of the federal Workplace Relations
Act.
In the ACT, a large number of sub-contractors have signed up to a 36-hour
week deal which would be phased in over three years. However, the major
contractors are still holding out against the union's claims.
The South Australian branch of the CFMEU held a mass meeting on October
24, at which members endorsed the 36-hour week campaign. However, the branch
faces a number of difficulties, including a lack of major building projects.
As a result the campaign in SA will develop at a much slower pace.
In Queensland, a combined mass meeting on December 4 of the two CFMEU
divisions which cover tradespeople and labourers voted to authorise their
division leaderships to give notice to employers who had not settled in
principle by January 24 of the union's intention to take industrial action.
This would include a 10-day stoppage, working a nine-day fortnight and
limitations on overtime.
As the employers haven't settled, the union has called a 10-day industry-wide
stoppage starting on February 26. It is likely that this will be joined
by Electrical Trades Union members in the building industry as they are
also in the midst of EBA negotiations. Plumbers in the Communications,
Electrical and Plumbing Union could also join the 10-day stoppage if they
don’t reach agreement on their EBA by January 26.
Some of the big building sites which will be effected by the industrial
action are the Lang Park redevelopment in Brisbane, the Gold Coast Arts
Centre and the Cairns Yacht Club.
CFMEU assistant national secretary Dave Noonan described to Green
Left Weekly the difficulties of industry-wide campaigns under the system
of enterprise bargaining, a system which was initially introduced by the
former federal Labor government in the early 1990s. He said: “The disparities
in the campaign, and the wide-ranging demands from state to state, demonstrate
the weaknesses of the EBA system. The system has introduced inequalities
not only from industry to industry, but also inside single industries.
“This has led to a fleeing of skilled labour in states with lesser agreements
to states that have better agreements.
“It is becoming more and more important for the CFMEU and the broader
trade union movement to start addressing this problem.”
[Mick Bull is on the Victorian state management committee of the CFMEU’s
construction division.]
From Green Left Weekly, February 26, 2003.
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