BY ANDREW FERGUSON
Sam Wainwright's
article on illegals (GLW #513) was great in theory but demonstrated
a lack of understanding of the dynamics of contracting.
Employers have historically used many strategies to undermine union achievements with the use of subcontract labour, most successfully in the building industry. However, in recent years there has been a growing tendency to use unlawful workers as cheap labour.
The majority of these workers are organised to come into the country as tourists. The majority are not the poor but are in fact the best paid tradespeople in their own country wanting to triple their wage working in Australia. However, tripling their wages is about 50% of normal wages here in Australia. The contractors that use these gangs of tourists to work on sites undercut union companies when they put in tender prices.
It may be a great theory, i.e., simply organise the workers to be paid correctly, but it is absurd. All of these workers are engaged in cash in hand. Even if the workers needed the correct net pay, the boss has undercut union companies because the boss is not paying group tax, payroll tax and workers' compensation premiums worth 50% of the cost of labour.
In terms of the lecture on union responsibility, I can say with authority, the NSW branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) has recovered more back pay and entitlements for unlawful workers than the rest of the trade union movement in Australia combined. Millions of dollars have been collected and paid. In fact, in the building industry royal commission, the union was castigated for allegedly forcing four contractors to pay $100,000 to a widow from South Korea.
On a weekly basis, the CFMEU recovers bad money for workers including unlawfuls. We are particularly active in assisting unlawfuls principally to teach contractors a lesson about labour standards in Australia. However, we do not accept that we should allow a contractor to continue working on sites using gangs of unlawfuls being paid cash in hand.
Finally, our efforts have not just focused on unlawful workers. More than any other union, we have taken up the plight of workers sponsored into the country by employers.
Not willing to pay proper union wages, employers in Australia are increasingly resorting to sponsoring skilled labour into Australia under three-year contracts, complaining of a shortage of labour here. This is bogus. These workers are being used because they are compliant and generally not familiar with labour laws and the role and relevance of unions. These workers are in fact organised by the CFMEU in NSW.
We have had a number of successes in organising such workers into strikes the most prominent of these disputes was the Indian Stonemasons on strike for five weeks at a Helensburgh site two years ago. We are currently liaising with the South African trade union movement to get details on another immigration racket where an African worker was engaged on a site at Lake Cargelligo. We have sent a union activist to South Africa to ensure justice for this worker.
[Andrew Ferguson is the NSW state secretary of the CFMEU.]
From Green Left Weekly, November 13, 2002.
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