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Issue No. 127 | 08 March 2002 |
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Power Plays
Interview: Still Flying Women: Suffrage or Suffering Industrial: No Coco Pops For Brenda Unions: Back to the Heartland Activists: Getting to the Point International: Push Polling Economics: Debt Defaulters Poetry: Those Were the Days Review: Black Hawk Dud Satire: Fox-Lew Launch Rescue Bid for Beta Video
The Soapbox The Locker Room Week in Review Tool Shed
 How to Beat the BanksCollins Goes Cahill
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Unions Back to the Heartland
**************** From the well-appointed cafeteria above the CFMEU Construction Division's new offices Sydney unveils herself. Not the slick, swished back city they used to look on from Kent St in the CBD but people's Sydney in all her colour and diversity. Choose your faith. There are domes, spires, crosses and minarets; Dooleys Club for those with more Catholic tastes; and, just to cover the field, Rosehill Racecourse with the Clyde Oil Refinery as a backdrop. The Olympic Stadium, which helped hundreds of construction workers into mortgages, stands in the mid-distance. Cranes sweep the skyline. But the union didn't move for the view. Practical considerations included money, accessibility and room to grow. Equally important, according to secretary, Andrew Ferguson, was the need to strengthen community links. Just six months into their new home, they have sought out, and found, a mix of fellow residents. After-hours, their offices host Amnesty International; an Iraqi Community Group; Asian Women at Work; a Chinese Dance Group; Sydney Western, Labor for Refugees; the Lidcombe branch of the Labor Party, and salsa lessons. You didn't read it here but Ferguson is reputed to be especially enthusiastic about the dance classes. In return for use of the premises, the Chinese dance instructor does Mandarin interpretations for the union and its members. Similarly, Iraqi community leaders organise CFMEU forums amongst their people . The union helps the Korean Research Centre at Campsie and its co-ordinator, Joon Shik Shin, has alerted the Construction Division to a string of employment scams. The day Workers OnLine visited, two Iraqis were explaining how they and their friends got $100 a day with nothing by way of super, holiday pay, sick leave or workers compensation. That night 30 Korean tilers were due in to discuss their strong objections to being paid less than half the union rate. "Labour market deregulation has encouraged employers to believe they can do whatever they like. Government policies have led to a changed mentality," Ferguson said. "We have immigrant labour flooding the building industry, leading to chronic underpayment, poor safety standards and the denial of entitlements. "Rather than resist immigration we have chosen to work with it and organise people who are being ripped off as workers. It's in their interests and it's very much in the interests of our more established members." CFMEU officials estimate that of the 40,000 building workers currently employed in NSW more than half use English as a second language, if at all. Koreans are prominent in domestic tiling, Chinese in gyprock; while Arab speakers are increasingly being used to slash entry level rates. This demographic change is reflected in the union's organisational structure. At least 11 languages - English, Maori, Italian, Portugese, Greek, Spanish, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, Arabic and Maltese - are spoken by Lidcombe-based organisers. One, Mohammad Morgani, a former bodyguard for the president of the Lebanese parliament, has been able to crack several scams involving Arabic-speaking workers. Ferguson insists the make-up of the organising staff reflects the changing membership rather than a deliberate attempt to employ from ethnic communities. It has undoubtedly, though, led to strong ties with those groups. "We are in a position now where we know that when a picket arises we can go to the Iraqi, Lebanese, Colombian, Croatian and Korean communities and get 10 activists from each at the drop of a hat," Ferguson says. Comrades Caf�, held most months to raise funds, celebrates the multi-ethnic feel. Staff and officials gathered this week for Portugese delights with Colombian workers benefiting from the exercise. Lidcombe, though, is not a stand-alone operation. The CFMEU maintains a sub-office, staffed by four organisers in the CBD, aware its muscle is strongest on big, well-organised jobs where employers have millions tied up in investments. It was in the central city where workers marched off every site at first news of Peter Reith's standover tactics on the waterfront. Nor was the move just about reaching new allies. The room for expansion has allowed the development of a multi-faceted, one-stop shop for CFMEU members. Besides the organisers, industrial officers, legal and administration staff common to most worker organisations, Lidcombe houses a range of other services. The three CFMEU-Master Builders Association joint venture companies are next door or on site - Comet, the training operation offering tickets to would-be riggers, dogmen, crane operators and the like; rehab company MEND; and employment company, BWAC. Between them, these non-profit entities employ 40 people and turn over more than $3 million annually. The joint-unions, Workers Health Centre, is in the CFMEU building and the Long Service Leave Corporation is about to relocate. Buoyed by stats showing most members lived in Sydney's west, officials were sold on Lidcombe, a key rail interchange for northern, southern and western lines, when they learned something in the order of 600 suburban trains stopped at the station every working day. Already, nearly 10 percent of financial members are walking through the door to pay their fees in person, compared to just over six percent in Kent St. Still not satisfied, the union is about to saturate City Rail stations on Lidcombe lines with posters advertising the new premises and the services on offer. Those who take up that offer will be greeted by an ornately carved Hindu God then, a few steps on, see a mounted, glass-cased South Sydney jumper. The symbolism is potent.
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