Construction workers have taken to the streets in some of Australia’s largest cities to demand a pay rise and special rules to prevent construction companies from going out of business.
Protesters left the job site and flooded the streets of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane on Wednesday, displaying CFMEU shirts and flags, calling for workers’ salaries to be raised in line with inflation.
They also called for the Fair Work Ombudsman to be abolished and replaced with a watchdog that gives priority to workers, citing ‘wage theft’ and ‘sham contracts’.
The protest arose in an effort to ban the use of manufactured stone containing silica, a substance that can cause an incurable disease called silicosis when inhaled.
A nationwide protest by the construction union CFMEU has led thousands of construction workers to take to the streets in Australia’s largest cities
In Melbourne’s Trades Hall, there was an impressive moment when a group of tradies gathered to perform a haka.
“The Fair Work Ombudsman has been a dismal failure on wage theft, bogus contracts and corporate failures — three of the biggest problems in the construction industry,” Zach Smith, national secretary of the CFMEU, said in a statement.
Australian workers deserve a watchdog with teeth, not one that tickles the bellies of companies doing the wrong thing as they pursue anti-union ideological battles left over from the coalition government.
“This National Day of Action is a crucial time for CFMEU members to speak up on the issues fueling glowing anger in the community.”
Mr Smith described manufactured stone reinforced with silica as ‘the asbestos of the 2020s’ and called on the federal and state governments to ban the building material.
“Every day we wait to ban engineered stone is another day when Australians at work could face the death penalty,” he said.
“While governments have started a process towards a ban, our union’s hard deadline of July 1 next year remains in effect.
“If governments don’t ban 2020s asbestos, the CFMEU will.”
Meanwhile, in Brisbane, the glass door at the entrance to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Offices was smashed during the city’s protest.
The nationwide protests called for a 7 percent salary increase, the replacement of the Fair Work Ombudsman with a watchdog that prioritizes workers
Outside Melbourne’s town halls, there was an impressive moment when a group of artisans gathered to perform a haka.
Meanwhile, in Brisbane, the glass door at the entrance to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Offices was smashed during the city’s protest.
The protesters were reportedly drumming on the glass doors before shattering them, none of which entered the building.
Protesters in Sydney could be heard chanting ‘one fight, one fight’. Workers of the world unite’, a popular expression within socialist and communist groups.
They also called for a ban on manufactured stone containing silica, as inhaling the chemical can cause an incurable disease called silicosis.
“We have a Labor government, but we have a lot of rubbish laws left from Howard, Abbott, Turnbull Morrison and bastards like that,” John Setka, secretary of the CFMEU’s Victorian-Tasman branch, told the crowd of protesters.
“Federal Labor must deliver on its promised labor relations reforms and dump the hopelessly compromised (Un)Fair Work Ombudsman,” the CFMEU’s Queensland and Northern Territory branch wrote on Facebook.
“Australian construction companies continue to collapse, leaving subcontractors and workers millions of dollars for work they have already completed.”
Secretary of the CFMEU’s Victorian-Tasman branch, John Setka (pictured), told the crowd that the federal Labor government had to ‘deliver on its promised industrial relations reforms’
The mass demonstrations come five days after the collapse of Victorian construction company Porter Davis Homes.
The closure of the construction giant has reportedly put many crafts out of business and nearly 2,500 projects and 470 employees are at risk.
Several construction sites have been targeted by vandals, with a house in Melbourne’s suburbs burned to the ground.
The house was in the lock-up phase, paying $94,000 to Porter Davis the day before the builder filed for bankruptcy Friday, leaving about 1,800 homes unfinished in Victoria and Queensland.
The family also has a $400,000 loan for the home that was destroyed by the fire and may not be covered by insurance.