Remove this Banner Ad

News & Events CFMEU Protests

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

Miqar_Baqfhied

Miqar_Baqfhied

Cancelled
Joined
May 31, 2012
Posts
2,442
Reaction score
1,611
AFL Club
West Coast
Other Teams
Swan Districts
Watching the news and reading the rags I still cant find anything that actually spells out exactly why the CFMEU are having their massive hissy fit.

Does anyone know?
 
CFMEU wants the ability to name the shop stewards on the sites, however Grocon also wants to name them.

Can only assume the real issue is that Grocon hasn't provided the kickbacks that are traditionally provided to union officials to keep the peace on site.
 
Great so the union thugs are protesting and causing a rukus because they havent been given bribes. Amirite?
 
Could be a silly question - but what are shop stewards?

This sounds ridiculous. How is it related to health and safety? Surely the size of their guts pose a greater risk to their well-being?
 

Log in to remove this Banner Ad

Since the union thugs are illegally blocking the road, motorists should be allowed to ignore the road rules and run them over without charges been pressed. Could be a major money spinner for the state government. Heck I'd pay for seats to watch the fat thugs scramble out of the way.
 
Andre said:
Since the union thugs are illegally blocking the road, motorists should be allowed to ignore the road rules and run them over without charges been pressed. Could be a major money spinner for the state government. Heck I'd pay for seats to watch the fat thugs scramble out of the way.
Click to expand...
You're a traitor to your tribe comrade.
 
I just don't understand how people can get so worked up over something to the point where a protest becomes violent. Maybe I'm just too apathetic but I don't think I could ever be bothered to punch a horse over work.

I went to the ANF Nurses protest march through Bourke St as my gf is a nurse, though. That was a great day. I mostly went so I could finally use some Simpsons protest songs that I've been meaning to use at one point or another in my life.

2, 4, 6, 8, Baillieu's crime is very great.
[Pause].
Great meaning large or immense
We use it in the pejorative sense!

We're here, we're queer
We don't want anymore bears!

Let the bears pay the bear tax! I pay the Homer tax!
 
THRILLHO said:
I just don't understand how people can get so worked up over something to the point where a protest becomes violent. Maybe I'm just too apathetic but I don't think I could ever be bothered to punch a horse over work.

I went to the ANF Nurses protest march through Bourke St as my gf is a nurse, though. That was a great day. I mostly went so I could finally use some Simpsons protest songs that I've been meaning to use at one point or another in my life.

2, 4, 6, 8, Baillieu's crime is very great.
[Pause].
Great meaning large or immense
We use it in the pejorative sense!

We're here, we're queer
We don't want anymore bears!

Let the bears pay the bear tax! I pay the Homer tax!
Click to expand...

Now do Classical Gas.
 

Remove this Banner Ad

Scotland said:
They're probably testing the waters with the current IR system.
Click to expand...

The Fair Work Act is softer than fairy floss.

They can act all tough and mean with their big slogans and flags and feel free breaking the law by loitering around building sites, stopping people going to work, intimidating people for not joing them, bribe companies to 'keep the peace' and stopping traffic. Yet if someone does anything remotely offensive to them, like not naming a shop steward, they cry like big girls? Hypocritical bogan pieces of s*it.
 
It’s easy to pontificate about unions thugs and bludgers or tightass corporate fatcats, but reckon there’s usually fault on both sides when these sort of things occur.

Things have changed a hell of a lot in the last 20 or 30 years, the vast majority of businesses with heavily unionised workforces have good relationships with workers and unions these days. Nobody ultimately wants strike action – it just costs time and money on both sides.

A shop steward is a member of the workforce who is effectively the delegated union representative on a job site. They monitor the job to ensure everything is in line re the worker’s rights – conditions, safety, etc etc. They report back to the union who then takes up any issue with the employer.

From what I’ve read, Grocon wants the right to select who this will be on their jobs (usually they’re nominated by the union). TBH on the face of it this does seem strange – obviously the allegation is they’ll put their lackies into these roles and the job won’t be properly monitored. But I don’t really know the details of any huge issues Grocon may have had with shop stewards in the past.

Whoever is right or wrong here (I’ll bet it’s a bit of both on both sides), the major issue is there seems be to bloody dogmatic people on both sides – Grollo is reportedly losing $400k a day whilst the sites closed. His old man was known as very much a pragmatist - he just wanted to get on with the job, as he knew that was the best thing for him at the end of the day $ wise.
 

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

Ignore AA, he's only here to ensure everyone knows he feels superior to them. Asking him to contribute substantively is expecting a bit much.

The dispute involves a range of factors. The issue with the shop stewards is that Grocon refuses to allow outside union representatives to be brought in. They are happy for the union to elect the shop stewards, but insist that they must be chosen from the employees attached to the project. The CFMEU also wants to retain the ability to fly union colours on the worksite, something that Grocon wants to ban.

Ultimately it's probably fair to say that most of this stuff is a pretext for the underlying cause that has (apparently) been simmering for a while, which is a feeling on both sides that the other is flexing their muscles too much. The CFMEU has accused Grocon of using standover tactics on their members to influence votes, and Grocon is complaining about the CFMEU having too much influence on the running of the project. Both sides seem to have been spoiling for a fight, gambling on the new regulatory environment to try and crush the other - the CFMEU wanting to take advantage of FWA's reduced powers compared to the old ABCC, and Grocon hoping that the government would intervene as they did in the Qantas dispute.
 
I'm not a member of a union, in fact the only time I've ever come across them has been on the other side of negotiations. I have to say that working a little bit with them, my opinion of them has actually improved. I used to see them and just think bludgers, thugs etc... but in my experience the vast majority have been pretty reasonable operators who are happy to negotiate properly in good faith. There's no doubt a few cowboys and remnants of the old days out there but I don't think they're representative of unions as a whole anymore.

I think people who have no contact with unions always get a negative view of them - because the only time you ever see them is when something goes wrong, and they're on the news operating protests etc. People see that and just think they're constant troublemakers... but if you think about the other 50 weeks of the year when you don't hear anything about them, that's when everything is fine and things are running smoothly. Nobody sees that and the media certainly isnt interested in that.

As soon as I see something like this, that gets to this stage, I straight away think there's fault on both sides - it'll eventually be sorted, people are losing far too much money for it not to be. Both sides will have to give a bit.
 
The main problem I have with unions is that they are not very good at dealing with situations where the interests of the union don't coincide 100% with the interests of the employees in a specific workplace - which often leads to unnecessary conflict as the union seeks to protect their own position. I am sure this has a lot to do with the way unions have evolved over the decades, with the real power now being vested centrally in a cadre of professional ladder-climbers rather than representatives that come from the shop floor.

That said, those sorts of situations arise reasonably rarely - most of the time unions do genuinely act in the interests of their members, and do a pretty good job of representing them. And I guess even ladder climbers running unions is better than them being mobbed up, which is the way a few of them were run not so long ago.

Most of the problems with industrial relations in this country have arisen from the various political frameworks that agenda-driven governments of both sides have put in place over the years. Hawke and Keating curbed union power, Howard crushed it and Rudd/Gillard resurrected it. We're still finding the right balance.
 
My problem with CFMEU workers is they harp on constantly about safety etc. yet being in the pub game every single lunchtime if there is a worksite nearby we'll be flooded with tradies drinking half a dozen pots then going back and working at heights, with machinery etc....Bring up mandatory breathalysers and/or drug testing and you'll receive a decent rant about rights and privacy!

They aren't about safety. They are about cash.
 
I know plenty of unionised tradesmen from work and none of them spend their lunchtimes in the pub. I know because I see them sitting there eating their lunch. There's pubs in walking distance, they might go out for lunch some Fridays. So do most people in the office.

You can take the worst elements of any group and use it to make generalisations about the lot. Again, there cowboys and idiots around but it's not always indicative of the majority.

Alcohol and drug testing does occur for people operating machinery etc. It's not 1975.
 

Remove this Banner Ad

Remove this Banner Ad

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

Back
Top Bottom