Why the battle over a bridge is crucial to Australia’s construction sector: Gottliebsen

The future of the large infrastructure projects in Victoria and probably Australia is delicately balanced on Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge.

According to Fairfax Media, around 500 unionists gathered on Wednesday near the bridge and riot police in full gear were on stand-by at the scene.

Late yesterday the standoff led the unions to agree to a 48 hour suspension of picket lines to allow further negotiations with contractor John Holland.

Victorian Police Commissioner Simon Overland told Business Spectator that earlier this month the Victorian Government had encouraged him to use whatever force was required to keep order and that he believed the large number of police used had encouraged the parties to negotiate.

Overland declared that if no agreement came out of negotiations then the police would again divert whatever resources were required to restore order. So Wednesday’s events are a case of Overland turning his words into action.

Why is this dispute so important to Victoria and Australia that the police are taking this extraordinary action?

If the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) and its partner unions gain control of all building sites in Victoria and Australia, the cost of building will rise dramatically.

Historically the West Gate Bridge was an Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) site, but the CFMEU wanted the turf. John Holland had allocated the task of supplying some of the workers to a labour-hire company that did a deal with the CFMEU, and before long about 40 well-known CFMEU unionists were on site.

It took John Holland a few days to wake up to what had happened, but when it did the CFMEU people were marched off the AWU site. That has been translated in the media as the workers being sacked over pay and conditions. It’s true the CFMEU people want a different deal, but what we are really looking at is a turf war.

John Holland is taking legal action against the CFMEU. Obviously the outcome of those actions are a matter for the courts. It’s dangerous for a builder to take a union to court, so John Holland would not have taken that action had it not thought it had a good case that would involve high damages.

Many believed that the negotiations that Simon Overland referred to had been settled and that West Gate would remain an AWU site and that the CFMEU would open a new front on the desalination plant. But the presence of 500 unionists and riot police indicates that there is a lot of pressure being applied by both sides.

John Holland is being backed by the Victorian Government, but many members of the ALP are good friends with the CMFEU. This puts enormous pressure on Victorian Premier John Brumby. However, he recognises this is one dispute he cannot afford to lose, and he is backing John Holland to the hilt. Even so, Brumby and John Holland face a very determined opponent.

This article first appeared on Business Spectator