SYDNEY — Chanting “Union Power!” more than 5,000 construction and other building trades workers marched through the central city here Sept. 18 protesting the Labor government’s takeover of the construction workers’ union. Tens of thousands also marched in Melbourne, and the previous day in Brisbane.
They rallied outside the New South Wales state Parliament. Darren Greenfield, state secretary of the construction division of the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union, was greeted with prolonged cheers. “Workers will see through what the Labor Party has done to our union,” he said. “We will always stand up for our members.”
Greenfield was dismissed after the construction division of the CFMEU was placed under government administration Aug. 23. After rushing special legislation through Parliament with bipartisan support, the Labor government appointed a state administrator to run the union, who dismissed 281 of the union’s elected leaders.
CFMEU delegate Denis McNamara was another removed from his union positions. “They said it was in our best interests, but they never asked any of us what we thought. We’re telling them now!” he told the rally. “We’ll continue to fight until everyone is reinstated — the leaders we voted for — and the legislation repealed. We will come out stronger and more united.”
“This is an attack on every union. We call on all unions to stand up and fight with us,” McNamara said. Representatives of the Electrical Trades Union, the Plumbers Union, the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union and the Maritime Union of Australia spoke in support of the CFMEU.
Leaders of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the national union federation, have backed the federal government assault. “The ACTU has turned its back on workers and trade unions,” said Maritime Union of Australia Sydney branch secretary Paul Keating.
CFMEU members who’ve been on strike for over 40 days at Etex, a plant that processes plasterboard, joined the action. Rally participants enthusiastically gave donations to help their fight.
This was the second large protest in three weeks, winning broadening support especially from unions in the building trades.