Cranes in Melbourne’s Skyline Belies Liberal’s EBA Scare Campaign

Despite the Federal Government’s relentless campaign to characterise the Victorian construction sector as at war, well over 100 ground-breaking enterprise agreements have now been signed.

The historic enterprise agreement was negotiated with a group of major builders and developers in a process that saw the MBA sidelined. The agreement will see:

• Major productivity gains
• 5% wage increases over the next three years 
• paid family violence leave 
• paid parental leave
• mandatory female amenities on site
• 5 years industry RDO calendar

Malcolm Turnbull’s Liberal Government and their industrial allies, the Master Builders Association, have been at pains to portray the construction sector as dysfunctional and lawless to justify its ideological program. Yet throughout this period, constructive negotiations about how a healthy and sustainable commercial building sector will be shaped, continued.

“Their threats have fallen flat,” CFMEU State Secretary, John Setka said.

“The Liberal Party are waging an ideological war that simply has no relationship to what’s going on in the construction sector. There are cranes going up across the Melbourne skyline. This agreement is something that everyone involved can be proud of. Builders and developers will now have certainty for the next three years and we know that there will be plenty of work for our members,” Mr Setka.

Importantly, the failure of the Coalition to successfully exploit the ABCC as a double dissolution trigger means that the passing of the ABCC legislation and the 2014 Building Code is now unlikely.

“The major builders and developers are all competing for government work, but most will secretly admit that were the ABCC to re-established or the 2014 Building Code to have been introduced, it would have been bad for business. The last time the ABCC was in operation, deaths in the industry skyrocketed and the construction sector was in turmoil,” Mr Setka said.

Shortly after the Turnbull Government went into caretaker mode, IR Minister Cash handed power to approve enterprise agreements in construction to Director of Fair Work Building and Construction, Nigel Hadgkiss. However, the FWBC had to agree that the clauses of the new EA were compliant with its own existing code, the 2013 Code. 

A copy of the certified agreement can be found here: https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/documents/agreements/fwa/AE419628.pdf