“The focus of the audits will be on ensuring employees are receiving correct wages and entitlements and to examine whether workers are being improperly employed as independent contractors through the use of sham contracting arrangements. Where possible, the ABCC is committed to assisting employers understand their rights and obligations in these important areas,” – the letter states.
But the letter then goes on to add insult to injury: The ABCC defines ‘Finishing Trades’ as “those trades requiring a lesser level of skill or qualifications, including painters, tilers, gyprockers and concreters”.
“The CFMEU is outraged at the implied slur on the skills of these workers,” CFMEU Construction National Secretary Dave Noonan said.
“Painters, tilers and plasterer/gyprockers are apprenticed trades, requiring a 3-year or 4-year apprenticeship just like all the other trades.
"Concreters work on the structural parts of a building, pouring slabs, pillars, walls, floors. That the ABCC should include them as a ‘finishing trade’ shows just how ignorant the office is of the industry it claims to regulate.
“The ABCC is fundamentally compromised for regulating construction. Its plans to conduct targeted audits of sites for sham contracting can’t inspire confidence when they patently know so little about the industry.
“Construction workers will undoubtedly be asking what is the intention behind the slur on finishing trades skills?
“Because, make no mistake, the CFMEU will strongly resist any attempt to erode wages or relativities between finishing trades and other construction sectors.
“The ABCC has a track record of attacking workers’ rights and hard won wages and conditions in the construction industry. Window-dressing sham contracting audits will not fool workers if the ABCC’s real purpose is to back employers who would undermine union negotiated EBAs and workers’ hard won, skilled career paths in this industry," Dave Noonan said.
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