This is exactly what is being reported constantly in TURC and why it must continue.
Forget bias, CFMEU is out to ‘destroy me’: Site Service Group chief
Andrew Bourke fears a bleak future of escalating intimidation by unions, meek capitulations by builders, mounting job losses, soaring costs and a stranglehold on the construction sector.
If former High Court judge Dyson Heydon’s royal commission into union corruption goes off the rails, Mr Bourke predicts small businesses such as his Site Service Group, which is being targeted by the CFMEU, will die.
As unions step up their campaign for the royal commission to be closed down over Mr Heydon’s alleged bias for accepting an invitation to speak at a Liberal Party event, Mr Bourke has elected to speak out about union conduct on Brisbane work sites. According to Mr Bourke, speaking out is a sure way to become a bigger target, but he told
The Weekend Australian: “They’ll still try to destroy me if I stay quiet so I would rather speak the truth and make sure people understand the facts. There will be recriminations. But I have had enough and want to go public with the threats and intimidation by the cowardly union and their scumbag delegates and officials.
“In the middle of a royal commission, the CFMEU is crushing my small business, a traffic control company working in commercial construction.
“The union have had me sacked from five projects and stopped us winning two others. I believe we are black-banned by the union. We are a small player trying to grow, but we cannot get any work. It will be devastating if the royal commissioner is rolled over a speech to a bunch of lawyers, a speech which he didn’t even give. It is ridiculous.”
The CFMEU did not respond to a request for an interview about its conduct on Queensland building sites and its disputes with Mr Bourke.
Mr Bourke said his company faced an uphill struggle to survive because of its pledge to the union’s enemy, Grocon, to strictly manage site access and prevent trespass and disruption by the CFMEU. In an interview with
The Weekend Australian and in sworn statements to Fair Work Building and Construction investigators, who are mounting a formal inquiry, Mr Bourke described the modus operandi of the CFMEU to control access to sites.
“The union delegates want control of the gate so they can manage the traffic — everyone who comes and goes — because this means they can have effective control of the whole job,” he said.
“They pressure the builder and threaten to close the site down until they get that control.’’
He said his company, which oversees security and the entry of machinery and tradesmen at sites including Grocon’s major commercial development at 480 Queen Street in Brisbane’s CBD, strictly enforces the rules, infuriating the CFMEU, which demands immediate access.
He accused the CFMEU of intimidating and bullying another building company, Devine, which he said had recently bent to the union’s will and terminated arrangements with Mr Bourke’s business at five Brisbane sites.
“Devine kicked us to the kerb like a dirty bit of underwear on every job we had for them — it was absolutely disgraceful,’’ Mr Bourke said.
Investigators are examining whether Devine was pressured by the CFMEU on five Brisbane building sites: Vida Apartments in West End; Alex Perry Apartments in Fortitude Valley; Westmark Project in Milton; High Street Apartments in Toowong and Mode Apartments in Newstead.
Devine’s construction general manager Mike Tucker declined an interview request. A Devine spokesman, who confirmed an FWBC probe, issued a statement from chief executive David Keir, who said the decision to terminate Mr Bourke’s company was based on “non-performance of duties and a review of rates for traffic control services”.
Mr Bourke said he was told by Devine’s managers that they were being pressured by the CFMEU to drop him and his company.
“The CFMEU then made sure we were dropped by another developer on three of its projects,” he said. “The union boasts that we are going out of business and that my guys are going to be hired by union-friendly companies. With a Labor government that the union supported in power in Queensland, the CFMEU is out of control. The builders do not want to be in bed with the union. I think a lot of the building and safety guys would like to speak out but they are frightened.
“Grocon stands up against the union but it pays a price. If more builders do what Grocon does, they could change the industry.”
Mr Bourke wants to be called to Brisbane hearings of the royal commission to tell Mr Heydon, who is weighing calls from unions for him to stand down over alleged apprehended bias, where to find CFMEU wrongdoing. He and his employees are working with Fair Work and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in a bid to show the CFMEU engaged in an illegal secondary boycott of his company.
At Grocon’s 480 Queen Street site in Brisbane’s CBD yesterday, Mr Bourke said as many as 200 workers had been called off the job by their union delegate about 11am for a “safety” issue — the deliberate blockage of a toilet with paper meant there was no water on the job. “They have gone home at 11am on a Friday because the toilet was sabotaged, and because they call it a safety matter they get paid for the full eight hours,” he said. “It’s a scandal. They want to hold the industry to ransom.”
He said it was “insane” that on building sites controlled by the union, he was compelled to pay his own employees $42 an hour as their base rate for handling a stop/go sign, compared with $20 an hour elsewhere. “Some are making $2000 a week in the hand to turn a stop/go bat. Who can justify that?” he said.
“Then there are the superannuation and income protection payments which must be paid to union-controlled super funds rather than ones that they choose. These problems have to be sorted out.”