This week the CFMEU Construction & General Division holds its National Conference. The meeting is important to our union, to our members and to our industry. We are discussing how we will deal with current challenges as well as how we build our union for the future.

The following are some of the key points raised in my opening address to the Conference.

The Labor Government is not travelling well and we need to realise a Tony Abbott government is a real possibility. We need to be ready to defend the rights of workers against a new wave of attacks from employers. As the big corporations sense a change in the political situation, there’s a real push to bring back the main elements of WorkChoices - compulsory individual contracts, restrictions on collective bargaining and weaker union rights.

If Labor wants to retain the support of workers it needs to show us that it is serious about defending workers’ rights.

Migration

The story of our country, our industry and our union is one of immigration. Most of us are either migrants ourselves, or we are the children and grandchildren of people who came to this country seeking a better life for themselves and their families.

After the end of the White Australia policy in the early 1970s, the main political parties generally dealt with immigration policy on a bipartisan basis. It was common ground that Australia needed migrants, that their race should not be a factor and that migrants to Australia would be permanent migrants.

Under the Howard Government, all of that changed. At the same time that Howard was ruthlessly using asylum seekers in his fear campaign at the 2001 election, his Government was radically reshaping our temporary migration policy to allow employers easy access to guest workers under the 457 and other visa schemes.

The Howard Government introduced 457 visas so business could import temporary workers who could be paid less than locals and easily exploited.  Labor has introduced market rates for guest workers, but these are difficult to enforce. We continue to see guest workers ripped off and forced into sham contracts.

 Labor is under huge pressure from the big resource and construction companies to allow mass guest worker schemes - supposedly to meet skills shortages in major projects but in reality to provide a compliant workforce to maximise profits. Recently released Enterprise Migration Agreement guidelines fail to ensure that employers must employ locals before importing guest workers. They do not even provide preference for locals when redundancies occur.

A Labor Government needs to stand up to corporations who don’t care about our national interest, only the interest of their overpaid executives and largely foreign shareholders.

ABCC

Since Ark Tribe defeated the draconian ABCC in court, the ABCC has been forced to admit that they broke the law on every occasion on which they used coercive powers.

 This means 203 workers were illegally dragged in front of the ABCC Star Chamber and threatened with imprisonment if they did not act as informants against their own workmates and their union.

The need for legislation to end the ABCC and to restore equality before the law is clear and urgent.  We are awaiting the Government’s final legislation, but we will not be satisfied with anything less than the total abolition of the ABCC’s coercive powers and a return of the principle of one law for all workers.

Construction workers would suffer further attacks under a Tony Abbott Governmen, but Labor needs to stand up for job security and fairness for Australian workers or it will not be able to rely on their support.