Bosses, Bureaucrats, Union Brass: Workers Get Squeezed

Crane operator Glenn Tyrrell paid $590 up-front to a union he'd never joined, with no reason given for the transfer. That's what he told Victoria's royal commission into the Big Build on its second day of hearings, and it's where the tidy story of heroes and villains starts to fall apart.

Tyrrell was one of about 15 casual workers hired through Zoom Recruitment on the Gap Road level crossing removal project in Melbourne's north. About a week after the June 6 stoppage in 2022, four years ago, they were called into a lunch room and told they had to stop working for the labour hire firm, transfer to BK Labour Hire, and join the CFMEU. "That's the first time I joined any union," Tyrrell said. Nobody asked what he wanted. The people at the top of the chain settled the matter and sent the bill down to the bottom.

Who Has the Power

The commission heard that work at Gap Road ceased on June 6 and resumed on June 7, 2022, after control of the site passed to the CFMEU. Project costs blew out by an estimated $6 million. Between May 25 and 31, the union issued 8 safety notices to contractor John Holland, then presented another 23 on June 1 and 2. That's 31 entries in the week before the stoppage.

John Holland's general superintendent Steve Testolin said he suspected an agenda beyond safety. "April, May, there were continual requests to enter sites ... it was more of an intelligence-gathering mission," he said. He described being summoned to CFMEU headquarters, where the demands were laid out: a CFMEU-nominated health and safety representative, an end to sourcing workers through Zoom Recruitment in favour of the union's preferred BK Labour Hire, and a swap to CCL traffic management.

Then came the sweetener. Testolin said the company was told that "if we aligned ourselves with the union than there'd be positive outcomes and we'd be looked at favourably for future projects." Which projects? "Airport rail. We'd be one of the preferred contractors." Those are the allegations. It's a patronage economy where the work, the contracts and the labour supply all get carved up by whoever holds the keys.

Who Gets Crushed

Tyrrell said that before April 2022 there wasn't much union presence on site. After that, up to four organisers would at times turn up with Right of Entry paperwork. "They'd just come on site and literally stop the whole job," he said, describing officials standing in front of machinery and sitting on concrete barriers about to be lifted. Tyrrell himself had been voted in by his colleagues as the site's health and safety representative. The union installed its own once it took control.

Site supervisor Robert Van Den Tol, who said he had several decades experience, rejected the union's claim about risk assessments for piling works. "No one could start work without a Safe Work Methods Statement. No one," he said. He told the commission union officials often skipped signing in and wandered the site without an escort. "Not supposed to, no. Did they? Yes." He agreed they swore at him and made derogatory comments during the stoppage.

What the Authorities Did

Testolin said John Holland called WorkSafe and police when negotiations stalled. "WorkSafe was not prepared to come out immediately so at that point which was getting into the afternoon we requested police intervention. They were reluctant to come out as well, believing it was an [occupational health and safety] matter." The same apparatus that's never shy about turning up at a picket line couldn't be bothered when a contractor rang.

"As pressure and level crossings became more of a CFMEU-dominated area, we were being left to fend for ourselves," Testolin said. He told the commission John Holland felt abandoned by government representatives on the project. "Our safety records were above board but I knew that eventually we would have to concede ... because we weren't being supported by authorities."

A royal commission is a ritual. Government convenes it, lawyers question witnesses, and the structure that produced a project worth billions, a union leadership trading in preferred contractor status and a state that looked away stays standing. The casuals in that lunch room were never asked what they wanted. The hearing continues.