It’s not uncommon for the media, right wing politicians and sometimes right wing union leaders to have a go at the wages and conditions that construction workers have built up through generations of struggle.

Which is why, as a proud member of the WA branch of the CFMEU, I was shocked to read that a wage cutting proposal recently touted in the pages of the Australian Financial Review was reported to have come from our own union.

While no agreement has been made, the union leadership hasn’t denied reports that, as part of current enterprise bargaining negotiations, it has proposed to cut hourly wage rates by 9 percent and wages overall by 20 percent.

Instead, it had this to say in the union’s publication Construction Worker: “… discussions have proceeded on the basis that there is recognition on our part that there needs to be structural adjustment due to the contraction of major construction work in both the mining and construction sectors …

“Employers can no longer use the excuse that they are dealing with uncompetitive rates. Contrary to the endless criticisms from the Abbott government and other right wing organisations, we are aware of the issues around productivity and profitability in our industry.”

“We are responding to this in a way that preserves hard fought gains while keeping our members employed in what is currently a tough market.”

The union is clearly floating concessions it’s prepared to offer. Although the specific detail of what has been reported in the AFR remains unconfirmed, there are some important points to be made against arguments justifying concessions and about the disastrous impact of a backdown on wages or conditions.  

We have come under an array of attacks from the Abbott government: a royal commission, the potential reinstitution of the ABCC, threatened deregistration and the issuing of hundreds of thousands in fines for “illegal” industrial action. Their intention is clear – weaken one of the strongest unions in the country and send a signal to others that you can’t fight. Added to this is the reality that some anti-union builders and contractors have occupied a space in the industry through unscrupulous practices, including undercutting union rates.

But the logic of the market is the logic of the bosses. They rely on job market insecurity to force wages down in good times and bad. They continue profiting from our labour in the so-called lean times. We have nothing to gain from accepting that our labour is sometimes of lesser value. We should be fighting to maintain what we have wrested from the grubby mitts of builders and mining companies, no matter what the market.

Talk of productivity, profitability and competitive rates is not the currency of trade unionists. These are the very reasons given for making us work longer, harder and too often dangerously. We have to reject the idea that our wages and conditions should be dependent on “the right kind” of builder or a contractor’s ability to make a profit and to win tenders. We didn’t get to where we are today by trying to influence the selection of builders who are prepared to play nice.

Shonky contractors shouldn’t be given the elbow room to operate at all. We need to weed them out with militant action. We need to force them up to union standards, not let them set the terrain on wages and conditions.

On a site where I have been working recently – a non-EBA site – those who call the union over safety issues have been hounded and labelled “infiltrators” by management.  Without a fight, a builder like this will be obstructive towards the union no matter how low we price our labour. The only remedy is to organise these sites.

The challenges that we face today are not so different from those faced by workers in this industry in generations past. They organised their workplaces, and if it was good enough for them it’s good enough for me.

Any cut to wages or conditions is a sure signal to bosses in all industries that there is a new benchmark for how much more they can squeeze out of their workers. We are under a concerted attack from governments and bosses. The scale of the fight that we face shouldn’t be understated, but cutting our own wages won’t help us win.