Administration’s strangulation of the CFMEU construction union and further attempted asset-stripping continued apace over summer, despite Admin kicking a couple of own goals.
Administrator Mark Irving played to the gallery at the LNP’s Queensland Commission of Inquiry into the CFMEU at its hearings in late November and early December, regaling it with the alleged industrial misdeeds of the union.
When Irving was asked by the lawyer assisting the commission why the union shouldn’t be deregistered by Fair Work, he said he was against this because “the void” would be filled “by more unscrupulous operators” and “create chaos”.
A week earlier, Zach Smith, national secretary of the CFMEU and Irving’s appointed Victorian branch executive officer, was hammering Victorian job delegates into accepting the sacking of 11 organisers because otherwise the union would face worse things like “deregistration”.
Smith hinted that he had inside knowledge of Labor’s plans to do this if necessary. “If anyone thinks that there would not be the political will to do that, I’ve got something to tell you otherwise.”
But Smith resigned from the Labor Party’s national executive in mid-October after his membership of a body that voted twice in 2024 to support the Administration of the CFMEU was exposed.
Smith likes to fudge his role to suggest he has some independence under Administration.
But Irving told the Queensland inquiry, “All the people engaged in the CFMEU exercise power through me. Through the delegations I have established, through the systems I have established.”
Incolink
The head of the Victorian construction redundancy and training fund, Incolink, a former Victorian Labor Secretary, resigned in late November.
His replacement is Tim Pallas, the former Victorian State Treasurer, who is tasked “to oversee an investigation into $27 million in grants that Incolink gave to CFMEU Victoria” from 2022.
No such “investigation” will occur into the Master Builders Victoria’s (MBV) opaque arrangement where “about almost half its income comes from Incolink”, despite “warnings” by Fair Work that the MBV needs to explain itself.
Meanwhile, other construction unions are trying to keep militant CFMEU organisers in the industry by employing them, in a practice known as warehousing.
This is in the hope that when the union comes out of Admin and democratic elections are held, they can either run for election or be re-employed by the CFMEU.
Irving is aware of the practice and asserted, “By the time the next election occurs, we will be well and truly years away from the current set of circumstances.”
Irving also dealt a blow to the illusions peddled by Queensland CFMEU branch officials who have made their peace with Admin and who have repeatedly told delegates and members that the branch will “get out of Admin early”.
Irving told the Queensland Inquiry that Admin “continues to be required” for the state branch and that he hasn’t even “spent a lot of time considering” the branch.
Own goals
Admin has scored two own goals over summer. A Victorian organiser who was summarily dismissed won her Fair Work case for unfair dismissal. And another organiser kept on by Smith after the purge was arrested and charged with fraud.
Respected CFMEU organiser Esther van Arend was sacked by Admin in November 2024 over a verbal altercation with Age journalist Nick McKenzie in a public place. McKenzie’s articles have consistently thrown mud at the union.
Irving’s sacking of Esther made her a “removed person” under the Admin law and therefore unable to work for any other union registered by Fair Work.
Just before Christmas, Esther won her Fair Work case against her summary dismissal based on no due process. Her win removed her status as “removed person”.
In early January, an organiser kept on by Admin and Smith, Paul Tzimas, touted to be a “future leader” of the CFMEU by ABC News in 2017, was arrested and charged by the Victorian Police task force set up to investigate the CFMEU.
In one piece of good news, CFMEU members at CSR Gyprock in Melbourne won their strike after going out in mid-November.
But the win could have been quicker and more complete if strikers had union backing to impose hard pickets to stop truckloads of scab plasterboard.
It’s a reminder that members need to see the back of Admin and rebuild the union’s proud militant tradition of struggle.
By Tom Orsag
