A decision by a union representing local council workers to ally itself with notoriously militant construction union the CFMEU is causing fear among ratepayers about strikes, higher wages and higher rates.
The move to represent workers who were previously members of the Australian Services Union – which has 135,000 members across the country – came through the rival Municipal and Utilities Workers Union (MUWU), which has decided to join forces with the CFMEU.
MUWU spokesman Darren Creswell said his members allied themselves with the CFMEU, whose Victorian state secretary is the controversial John Setka, because ‘they are a militant union’.
‘That’s one of the main reasons we went across, and one thing that they are very, very strong on is health and safety. And that’s the best thing about them.’
The CFMEU construction union is attempting to muscle in on wage negotiations for council workers in Victoria, and ratepayers fear it could lead to militancy, strikes and higher rates. The union’s Victorian state secretary John Setka is pictured with loudspeaker
‘All I want to make sure is that everyone goes home at the end of the day,’ he said.
The move will see the CFMEU now try to involve itself in wage negotiations between council workers such as garbage collectors and gardeners, and councils.
But Dean Hurlston, the president of Council Watch, a lobby group which exists to keep local government accountable, expressed widespread fears among ratepayers about what such a move could mean.
‘The CFMEU is notorious for driving up wages. Councils cannot afford this without deep cuts to services,’ Mr Hurlston told Daily Mail Australia.
‘At a time when many are questioning the value and outcomes from councils more than ever, Setka needs to stay away from an industry that does not need his wage negotiation tactics,’ he said.
‘Council CEOs are already weak at negotiating anything, can you imagine them against Setka, they may as well hand the keys to the bank vault over now.
‘Sekta has targeted a very weak cohort and he knows it.’
Mr Setka said councils seem to be more interested in ‘gender neutral toilets’ than staff, and predicts that huge numbers of council workers will join the CFMEU.
‘While the rest of the trade union movement is disappearing up its own a***s, we are actually growing,’ he told the Herald Sun.
‘If everyone hates us so much, how come they want to join us?
‘A lot of garbos, the blue collar workers, they are not getting serviced and they see their union as just happy clapping f***ing future politicians who couldn’t give a f***.’
But Tash Wark, the Australian Services Union’s deputy secretary, said ‘the CFMEU has no place in local government’.
‘The ASU is the local government union and will keep representing the interests of all local government workers,’ she said.
Mr Creswell said MUWU first approached the CFMEU, not the other way around.
‘We approached them because we had the members but we didn’t have the expertise to continue trying to (negotiate with councils) ourselves.
‘And so we approached the CFMEU and they said yes, because they had done local government in Queensland, Canberra, South Australia and Tasmania.’
He said the CFMEU responded that ‘if people wanted to come across (to it), that they would be happy to do that because all they wanted was for everyone to be in a union because the ASU just weren’t covering us’.
Mr Creswell said that was ‘why we actually started up’ in the first place.
‘There were four people (who) started up the MUWU and we just didn’t have the expertise to keep going. So we then thought the best idea was to get support from the CFMEU.’
He said there is a lot said about the CFMEU that is ‘incorrect’.
‘This is the sort of stuff that the ASU have spread … that you’d be on strike every second week … that’s just not correct.’
Mr Creswell said he has had some push back from the ASU, ‘But that’s OK. I can pick and choose wherever I go’.
‘Everyone’s got a choice and if the choice is that we go with the CFMEU, that’s what we’ll do.’
‘The CFMEU is notorious for driving up wages. Councils cannot afford this without deep cuts to services,’ Council Watch president Dean Hurlston said. A council worker is pictured
Tanya Tescher, secretary of the Victorian Ratepayers & Residents Association, also slammed the move.
‘If the CFMEU are trying to muscle in on council workers there may be ramifications,’ she said.
Ms Tescher said it could lead to ‘demands for large hikes in wages (which) will have a possible impact on council budgets and the allocation of monies in council budgets, thus affecting services provided to residents’.
Meanwhile the ASU, which still represents the majority of local government workers, has launched a legal challenge against the CFMEU’s planned expansion.
Daily Mail Australia contacted Mr Setka and Ms Wark for further comment.
