Tens of thousands of construction unionists marched in Magan-djin/Brisbane on September 17, and in Naarm/Melbourne and Gadigal Country/Sydney the next day, to demand their elected officials be reinstated and Labor’s new anti-union law be withdrawn.
Susan Price reports that more than 5000 construction workers and their supporters rallied at Emma Miller Place in Magan-djin/Brisbane in solidarity with the Construction Forestry Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU) and against the federal government’s takeover of their union.
Speakers included sacked Queensland CFMEU Secretary Michael Ravbar, former National President Jade Ingham and Rebecca Barrigos, a rank-and-file activist in the Queensland Teachers Union.
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There was a strong contingent of Electrical Trade Union (ETU) members, with officials from the union speaking.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and secretary Sally McManus copped strong condemnation for supporting Labor’s new law, and speakers said the Queensland Council of Unions was also now “on notice”.
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Rank-and-file women unionists were prominent, some holding signs saying: “Sally [McManus] doesn’t speak for me”, “Sally the sell-out” and “Sally the class traitor”.
Unionists marched on Gadigal Country behind two banners, one saying “CFMEU Here to Stay” and another: “CFMEU by Choice; Administrator by Force”.
Peter Boyle reports that there was strong support from other unions, including the Maritime Union of Australia, the ETU and the Plumbers Union NSW.
Paul McAleer, from the International Transport Workers’ Federation and former secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia (Sydney branch), chaired the protest rally.
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“The only reason why we have progressive change in this country’s history is because strong, intelligent, smart and tough workers sought to sacrifice what little that we have in order to fight for a better future,” McAleer said.
“A better future is based on breaking bad laws, and that’s why we’re going to tell these rotten politicians.”
Denis McNamara, a rank-and-file CFMEU member, said everyone needed to get organised. “We are going to need you to go back to your communities and hand out leaflets at Grand Final day, at hospitals, train stations and airports. We need to win the public over on this law.”
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He said the unions are challenging the law in the High Court, “but we cannot rely on any court or any jurisdiction … so we have to hope for the best in that court and prepare for the worst.
“We have to get ready for more struggle, for an intensified struggle, until we get what we need — the complete reinstatement of the leaders we voted for.”
Brad McDougall, deputy secretary of the ETU NSW/ACT, which covers 15,000 electrical workers, described Labor’s treatment of the CFMEU as “bloody disgraceful”.
“This is an attack on the entire union movement — we need to draw a line in the sand, and we need to do it now.”
Theo Samartzopoulos, Secretary of the NSW Plumbers Union, said the new law took out the whole CFMEU executive “in one fell swoop”.
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“This will have detrimental effects on all construction workers across the country: safety standards will get worse; wages and conditions will erode.
“Why don’t they go after big business, which is not paying their fucking taxes, or hundreds of employers who don’t pay their workers the correct entitlements, superannuation and wages? Or builders who are negligent and kill a worker on site?”
Paul Keating, MUA Sydney branch secretary, said the new law is “the most anti-democratic, anti-union and anti-worker” that he had ever seen, “because it removes your right to go to court to defend your innocence” and removes workers’ democratic right to elect their own leaders.
The real criminals, Keating said, are the “rotten Albanese government and the NSW Minns government”.
More than 30,000 unionists rallied in Naarm/Melbourne, Elizabeth Bantas and Jacob Andrewartha report.
Troy Gray, Victorian Secretary of the ETU, spoke about the need to keep a fighting union in the construction industry.
“The construction industry has been good to me, because it’s a unionised construction industry. You make a living and you come home the same way you went to work. An un-unionised construction industry is a machine that chews up workers and spits them out.”
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CFMEU National Secretary Zach Smith said: “We won’t let business take advantage of the CFMEU administration to put safety standards and wages at risk.
“One hundred and seventy years ago, construction workers stood up for the eight-hour day. They were CFMEU. The CFMEU will be here for another 170 years.”
Victorian AMWU Secretary Tony Mavromatis angrily denounced “the people that call themselves politicians”. “First, you touch the CFMEU, then you touch another union. Repeal the dirty laws. We’ll fix our own problems. We’ve fixed them before.”
The protesters marched from the Victorian Trades Hall to Flagstaff Gardens, where they heard from more speakers, including housing advocate Jordan van den Lamb, Assistant MUA Branch Secretary Aarin Moon and a female CFMEU delegate.
Van den Lamb criticised the corporate media’s narrative that construction workers’ wages are responsible for the inflated price of housing. “Construction workers earning decent wages are not the cause of our housing crisis,” he said, adding that it is caused by “greed and decades of government failure”.
Moon spoke about the shared solidarity between construction and maritime workers, going back to the Patrick’s dispute.
A female CFMEU delegate said that being a union member “means I know I will come back home safely”. “We won’t apologise for wanting a better standard of life” in a cost-of-living crisis, she said.
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