Socialist Party Australia - Grocon set to take on Australia's strongest union

The discovery last month of a listening devise in the shop stewards office at Grocon’s massive Eureka project in Southbank, Melbourne (it will be the tallest building in the southern hemisphere) shows that the construction giant has the Victorian CFMEU in its sights. Backed by the Federal Government, the Grollo family-run Grocon company has decided to take on the status quo in the building industry.

What is the status quo? The other major builders (Multiplex, Baulderstone etc) are forced by workers, through their unions, to sign identical Enterprise Bargaining Agreements. These EBAs (alongside the Award and the ‘green book’ that covers conditions) ensure relatively decent wages for building workers. The bosses have to accept this because a) tight deadlines for completion of projects and tight profit margins mean they can’t deal with stoppages for any length of time and b) the strong unions (which have historically had strong communist-trained activists and leaders such as Norm Gallagher, Jack Munday and John Cummins). This means that the industry is pretty civilized compared to other advanced capitalist countries like New Zealand and Britain.

The booming construction industry makes up 5% of Australia’s gross domestic product. The strong building industry unions are considered a major impediment to the neo-liberal agenda of bosses and their governments. They not only win above normal wages and conditions for their members, but are also the backbone of all joint workers’ movement campaigns and rallies as best seen during the 1998 MUA dispute.

Now that Grocon has few new jobs in the pineline in Melbourne they are very open to ‘having a go’ at the Victorian CFMEU in the next round of EBA negotiations late next year. They are almost certainly receiving moral, intelligence and political support from the Federal government. Their industrial relations unit is being run by super-traitor John Van Camp, who left his post as State Secretary of the FEDFA division of the CFMEU to take up the well-paid job. The obvious question is whether he had already secretly taken on the job before formally betraying building workers.

Last year, Grocon’s first attempt to win a non-union agreement was defeated when their workers voted 3 to 1 for the ‘normal’ union-negotiated EBA. This was a shock to the cocky new anti-union boss of Grocon, Daniel Grollo. His father had a more pragmatic view of unions when he ran the company. Often Grollo would be the first to sign union agreements and thereby get out of any strike action giving him a competitive advantage over his competitors. However, while he signed deals early, he more often than not didn’t actually pay the new rates! The mainly new migrant Italian workforce would keep numb to protect their jobs. Today the new 2nd and 3rd generation of migrant workers are no longer willing to work seven days a week for the profits of the Grollo family, as shown by last year’s EBA vote.

However things have moved on since then. There is much rank and file dissatisfaction with the regime Grocon have created onsite. Unlike the other major builders, there is massive security onsite, sirens blaring to start work and end smoko and lunch breaks, and a cocky, aggressive approach from management. The atmosphere is totally different from the other jobs in Melbourne. Almost every day the Grocon has one or other construction union hawled through the Industrial Relations Commission. They are clearly seeking to sue the union over the normal run of the mill industrial spats that are a feature on every construction site in Victoria. And all this is just an entrée to the main battle - refusing to sign next years union EBA. (There are even rumours that they may fund an opposition ticket in the upcoming union elections).

What should be done? Whether the union goes in hard or not, Grocon will make their attack, that much is clear. Therefore we should start now to mobilize against the regime of terror on Grocon jobs. No to sirens and no to aggressive management and no to double standards on health and safety (compared to how the union treats bosses on other jobs). Going into battle now on these basic issues will help rebuild moral amongst workers on Grocon sites and rally them for the bigger battles to come. No to a separate EBA for Grocon and no to lower standards of health and safety on Grocon jobs. Let’s give Van Camp and his masters the kicking they deserve!