With Jacinta Allan’s Labor government polling third place in the Victorian election in November, the bosses are amping up their anti-union campaign, demanding she call a royal commission to uncover “hidden” evidence of unlawfulness in the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU).
The establishment media, including the ABC, is driving the campaign against the CFMEU. Nick McKenzie, from The Age, is leading the charge on the Victorian government’s failure to “clean up” the “industry”.
Almost every day, there is another attack piece.
On July 20, McKenzie and Kieran Rooney alleged that “Labor’s signature $100 billion Big Build program had been infiltrated by criminal gangs and corrupt union and business practices” and that Allan had failed to deal with the alleged problem. McKenzie and Rooney quote others in their salacious pieces, never verifying their sources.
The fact that no CFMEU official has been convicted in Victoria does not faze them.
The few charges that were laid against organisers appear to have stalled, either due to lack of evidence or because they were so minor.
Predictably, Labor’s defence has been weak, because it too wants to weaken the CFMEU. It has supported and defended the federal Labor government’s forced administration of the CFMEU since August 2024.
The damage being done to Australia’s most militant, independent union may be irreversible.
Mark Irving, the former CFMEU administrator, laid out his restructure of the union in his third bi-annual report to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations in February, arguing the union would be made into a compliant union controlled by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU).
Many are only just beginning to understand the implications of Irving’s measures, which are being implemented by new CFMEU administrator Michael Crosby.
Since the mass outrage against the CFMEU takeover, there has been almost no fight-back. This is despite the entire leadership in Victoria, NSW, Queensland and South Australia being sacked. Irving sacked 90% of all coordinating staff and 90% of organisers in NSW, 60% in South Australia and 50% in Victoria and Queensland. There have been more sackings this year.
Irving boasted that it was a “regeneration of the staff”, implying that people chose to leave. But organisers were threatened with losing their entitlements or becoming “removed persons” — which would mean they would not be able to work for any other union if they did not resign from the CFMEU.
A series of ACTU officials with no construction industry experience, including Emma Kingdon and Matt McGowan, have been installed to run the CFMEU. (McGowan as National Tertiary Education Union general secretary unsuccessfully offered a 15% pay cut to the bosses in return for job security in 2020.)
Irving claimed this “team of professional executives” was required “to return the union to the democratic control of members as [a] principled, strong and independent union”.
However, there is no timeline for the CFMEU to be returned to the membership and there is no dialogue with members about the type of union they want. Victorian CFMEU members, who continue to meet monthly, are demanding answers from the CFMEU administration, but have received none.
Irving’s February report focused less on corruption allegations and more on the union’s supposed unlawful behaviour. He claimed that in the five years before 2024, the CFMEU had “engaged in 1163 contraventions of industrial laws” and developed “uncooperative relationships” with police, regulatory bodies and builders.
Irving claims that there has been no “unlawful behaviour” since the enforced administration, as the union is now based “more on co-operation and collaboration, and less on confrontation and conflict”.
Irving’s comments reveal that the federal government’s motivation for taking over the union is to control it — especially during the construction of the Olympic stadiums in Queensland and the AFL stadium in Lutruwita/Tasmania.
Labor governments and bosses want the flexibility to change rosters, or control days off, without fighting with the CFMEU, which has a militant record of fighting for the best and safest deals.
The rest of Irving’s report made clear that civil construction may be handed to the Australian Workers’ Union, which has a history of being more compliant.
Without an independent leadership body, the CFMEU has found it difficult to respond to Irving’s damaging report.
[Sue Bull is a member of Defend the Unions — Defend the CFMEU.]