‘We can’t even dictate contractors’: NSW builders eye EBA changes

“That’s given a lot of strength and support to contractors in NSW,” Mr Seidler told The Australian Financial Review on Monday. “It will certainly influence whether contractors who might have started talking are going to sign.”

A major investigation by The Australian Financial Review, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes has shown how underworld figures have infiltrated major NSW and Victorian construction projects and how the main CFMEU union controls access to work on site by withholding or granting enterprise bargaining agreements (EBAs) to companies.

Building company figures in NSW said on Monday the state has gone the way of Victoria in ceding control to an increasingly militant union.

“The building industry has lost all authority,” one building figure who declined to be identified told the Financial Review.

“We can’t even dictate contractors on a lot of projects. Contractors are being dictated to by unionists: ‘You can only go to these two and not those four’. That happens more than you think.”

One trade particularly affected was internal fitout work – or “gyprock,” as known in the industry – by workers skilled in installation of walls and ceilings, he said.

“That has a very limited pool of who we can go to,” the building industry source said. “There are fewer than four or five for major projects.”

The latest EBA in NSW, which will set conditions and pay increases – more than 22 per cent over four years –is currently in play.

Companies including Buildcorp, Aqualand and Roberts Co have already signed it, despite encouragement from Master Builders NSW not to do so.

“You’d be mad to sign this agreement in the current form on the basis that it gives the CFMEU total control over who you engage, which subcontractors,” Mr Seidler said.

“The advice that’s gone to industry is that it’s a bad clause for you unless you want to make the union your partner. They made their own decision to go that way.”

The key point in the new EBA is a clause referring to the use of subcontractors, which states: “If the company wishes to engage subcontractors and their employees to perform work covered by this agreement, the company must consult in good faith with the union. Consultation will occur prior to the engagement of subcontractors for the construction works.”

Despite the latest reports of corruption, kickbacks and gatekeeping of contractors by the main building union, builders still faced the prospect of negotiating their new agreements with NSW CFMEU Secretary Darren Greenfield, who has faced unrelated charges of bribery since 2021, charges he denies. There is no suggestion that Mr Greenfield is guilty of the charges.

More influence, not less

Another builder agreed the new EBA was likely to give the union “more influence, rather than less,” but little was likely to change while Mr Greenfield was still the key person on the union side.

“It depends if Darren is to be stood down,” the builder said. “That’s who we are negotiating with.”

CFMEU national secretary Zach Smith announced on Monday that the Victorian branch was being placed into administration, after an emergency meeting of the national executive was called following publication of some of the allegations.

Mr Smith said the national executive’s new powers would be used to immediately establish an independent process, overseen by a leading legal figure, to investigate any credible allegations of wrongdoing.

Many in industry were scrambling to respond to the weekend news of a slew of wrongdoing by the union, ahead of the publication of which Victorian CFMEU branch secretary John Setka abruptly resigned.

The Australian Constructors Association, which represents the largest contractors in commercial construction and infrastructure, said the problems reported over the weekend showed why productivity in construction was lower than it was 30 years ago.