Tens of thousands of construction workers walked off the job to protest the attack on the CFMEU on Tuesday in a nationwide strike.
Melbourne saw up to 50,000 on the streets as CFMEU members were joined by the MUA and other construction industry unions the ETU, the plumbers’ union and the AMWU.
There were also other union contingents including from the firefighters’ UFU and the health workers’ HACSU.
It was a taste of union power and the potential to force Albanese to retreat. Some said they were the largest construction union rallies in decades.
In Sydney up to 4000 workers took over Macquarie Street outside NSW Parliament. Sacked NSW Secretary Darren Greenfield blasted the “the rotten stinking Labor Party” as well as Sally McManus and the ACTU as “a sellout to working people” for supporting the attack.
“If they can make this rotten legislation to break up our union,” he said, “they can do it to any union.”
He warned that, “If they think by sacking the leadership our union is going to disappear they are very wrong,” as chants of “CFMEU: Here to stay” roared from the crowd.
Smear
Labor accused Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather of associating himself with “violence” and “intimidation” by speaking at the Brisbane rally.
This is nothing more than an attempt to smear militant industrial action from a union that is prepared to defy the law to stand up for workers. The real violence is the bosses’ efforts to cut corners on safety that see a building worker killed at work once every ten days.
In Melbourne, ETU Victorian Secretary Troy Gray explained how the unions plan to respond, “At this stage there looks like being three or four legal challenges and there’s about five unions that will fund it,” despite CFMEU funds now being controlled by the administrator.
But he admitted that, “Even if we’ve got a strong case in court it would take six months to lodge, probably ten months after that until you get an outcome and it would be a barrister’s feast.”
Putting hope in the courts to overturn administration is a mistake. Even if the unions win, after spending millions on lawyers, the government will simply change the law again to make the court case irrelevant, as it did to force through administration in the first place.
Gray also promised that other construction industry unions in Melbourne would hold a 1000-strong delegates meeting to support the CFMEU. “The discussion point at that meeting won’t be about administration,” he said.
“It will be a unanimous resolution from all the building industry unions to gather round the CFMEU and have a state-wide campaign to get up the [CFMEU’s] recent EBA.”
But there was no indication of how the CFMEU itself plans to keep organising to resist the administration.
Consequences
The Fair Work Ombudsman has already threatened workers who went on strike to attend the protest, urging bosses to report them for unlawful industrial action.
Albanese also threatened there would be “consequences” for attending. His new laws mean workers face up to two years’ jail for obstructing the administrator.
The stopwork rallies sent a strong message to the administrators and to Albanese. But the administrators are likely to sack organisers and expel delegates who have been willing to break the anti-strike Fair Work laws. Further strike action will be needed to defend them.
Construction bosses are already pushing to take advantage of the union’s weakened position. Multiplex in NSW tried to cancel its EBA, claiming it was “coerced” into signing. It has backed down, but the bosses’ plans are clear. Other companies in NSW and Victoria are refusing to sign the new EBA altogether.
CFMEU delegates across the industry will need to organise at a rank-and-file level to respond to attacks from the bosses and the administrator.
All unionists need to support the CFMEU and to demand that their own union leaders oppose this vicious attack on militant unionism.
- Meanwhile, more than 130 unionists crammed the launch meeting of the Defend the Unions – Defend the CFMEU campaign in Melbourne on Thursday night.
The meeting pledged to campaign for the administration law to be repealed, calling on workers to pass solidarity motions with the CFMEU in their workplaces and union meetings.
Workers, members of the ASU, supported such a motion at the Brotherhood of St Laurence in Melbourne this week.
