There’s no escaping it.
Whether it’s in the Pilbara, at the Port of Fremantle or on construction sites across the state, the unions are back disrupting the WA economy in a way they haven’t for decades.
Union bosses are flexing their muscles in all sorts of ways. Take the looming two-day strike by skippers at Freo Port that will bring one of Australia’s biggest trade terminals to a virtual standstill.
Or the push by unions to use a deliberate loophole in new workplace laws to force mining companies to run their negotiations with workers through them, despite just a tiny fraction of the Pilbara’s workforce being union members.
And then there is the CFMEU, currently fighting a public relations war with a slick advertising campaign, amid allegations bikies have infiltrated their ranks.
CCIWA predicted as much last year, when the Federal Government opened the gates by introducing the most radical industrial relations changes in a generation.
Aside from the direct impact of those changes, which are significant, businesses feared they’d have the cumulative effect of emboldening the unions. Many of the changes, after all, were straight from a union wish-list. It couldn’t have been more obvious that they were created foremost to address declining union membership.
Sadly, those fears have been proven right, and we’re now set to be dragged back to the bad old days when the unions held our economy to ransom.
Many people in the workforce today weren’t even born in the 80s. Those who were around will remember the tactics used by militant unions on our mines and on our waterfronts and would surely not want to go back there.
In the Pilbara, the unions operating on mine sites would strike over the slightest grievance. Productivity tanked and foreign investors were spooked.
Had the union behaviour in the region not been tackled, it’s doubtful WA’s iron ore industry would be what it is today. Life in this state would look very different.
The fact is that our economy has been transformed since those days.
Western Australia is no longer a sleepy corner at the bottom of the globe. We are an industrial powerhouse and the backbone of the national economy.
Workers in WA’s mining industry are among the best paid and safest in the world. They have been negotiating directly with their employers for more than a decade.
Now, like an unwelcome third wheel, the union wants to sandwich itself between the worker and their employer — whether the worker wants them to or not.
It’s no wonder the CFMEU in WA is keen to distance itself from its east-coast comrades.
But make no mistake, the problems in that union stretch across the country. That’s why we need the legislation currently before Federal Parliament that puts the union into administration in every State and Territory.
At Freo Port, workers are set to down tools after their bid for an 18 per cent pay rise was rejected by their employer — a State Government trading enterprise. The upshot of that will mean significant disruption for anyone that relies on goods going through the port, which handles 99 per cent of WA’s container trade.
This week a raft of reforms from the “closing loopholes” bill come into effect, including changes to causal employment. These changes will have wide-reaching impacts on small and family businesses and have the potential to reduce the number of casuals roles available to those that want them.
Ultimately, by gifting the unions an industrial relations system designed to boost their flagging membership and little else, the Federal Government has created an environment where bad-faith players can thrive.
Western Australia simply cannot risk being dragged back to the days of union chaos that strikes at the heart of our economic infrastructure. It’s not only our State that deserves better. Our nation deserves better. Nothing less than our economy and our standard of living is at risk.
There’s too much at stake for all of us.
Chris Rodwell is the Chief Executive of CCIWA