Construction workers have taken to the streets of some of Australia’s biggest cities to demand a payrise and special rules to stop building companies from collapsing.
Protesters have walked off the worksite and flooded the streets of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane on Wednesday, carrying CFMEU shirts and flags and issued a call for worker salaries to increase in line with inflation.
They also called for the Fair Work Ombudsman to be abolished and replaced with a watchdog which prioritises workers, citing ‘wage theft’ and ‘sham contracting’.
The protest originated in an attempt to ban the use of manufactured stone containing silica, a substance that if inhaled, can cause an incurable disease called silicosis.
A nationwide protest from the construction union, the CFMEU, has led to thousands of construction workers taking to the streets across Australia’s biggest cities
At Melbourne’s Trades Hall, there was a powerful moment as a group of tradies gathered to perform a haka.
‘The Fair Work Ombudsman has been a dismal failure on wage theft, sham contracting and corporate insolvencies – three of the biggest issues in the construction industry,’ Zach Smith, CFMEU National Secretary, said in a statement.
‘Australian workers deserve a watchdog with teeth, not one that tickles the tummy of corporations who do the wrong thing while pursuing anti-union ideological fights left over from the Coalition government.
‘This national day of action is a pivotal moment for CFMEU members to make their voices heard on the issues that are stoking white-hot anger in the community.’
Mr Smith described manufactured stone fortified with silica as ‘the asbeston of the 2020s’ and called for federal and state governments to ban the construction material.
‘Every day we wait to ban engineered stone is another day Australians could be given a death sentence at work,’ he said.
‘While governments have started a process which is working towards a ban, our union’s hard deadline of July 1 next year remains in place.
‘If governments won’t ban the asbestos of the 2020s, the CFMEU will.’
Meanwhile in Brisbane the glass door at the entrance of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Offices was smashed during the protest through the city.
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The nation-wide protests called for a 7 per cent rise in salaries, the Fair Work Ombudsman to be replaced with a watchdog that prioritises workers
Outside of Melbourne’s Town Halls, there was a powerful moment as a group of tradies gathered to perform a haka.
Meanwhile in Brisbane the glass door at the entrance of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Offices was smashed during the protest through the city.
The protestors were reportedly drumming on the glass doors before it shattered, none of which entered the building.
Protestors in Sydney could be heard chanting ‘one struggle, one fight. Workers of the world unite’, a popular phrase within socialist and communist groups.
They also called for manufactured stone that contained silica to be banned, as inhaling the chemical can cause an incurable disease called silicosis
‘We have a Labor Government but we have a lot of s**t laws remaining from Howard, Abbott, Turnbull Morrison and scumbags like that,’ John Setka, secretary of the Victorian-Tasmanian arm of the CFMEU, told the crowd of protestors.
‘Federal Labor must deliver on its promised reforms to industrial relations and dump the hopelessly compromised (Un)Fair Work Ombudsman,’ the Queensland and Northern Territory arm of the CFMEU wrote on Facebook.
‘Australian building companies continue to collapse, leaving subcontractors and workers millions of dollars out of pocket for work they have already completed.’
Secretary of the Victorian-Tasmanian arm of the CFMEU, John Setka (pictured), told the crowd the Federal Labor Government to ‘deliver on its promised reforms to industrial relations’
The mass demonstrations come five days after the collapse of Victorian based construction company, Porter Davis Homes.
The construction giant’s closure has reportedly left many tradies out of pocket and nearly 2500 projects and 470 staff in jeopardy.
Several building sites have been targeted by vandals with one house in Melbourne’s suburbs burned to the ground.
