In late May, a meeting of more than 5,000 construction workers at Melbourne’s Festival Hall voted to endorse an in-principle agreement with a group of major employers. This deal will form the basis of a pattern agreement that the CFMEU is pursuing across the industry in Victoria.

The agreement includes three annual pay rises of 5 percent and an eight-hour minimum for casuals (up from four hours in the current agreement). For the first time, the agreement provides for paid parental leave, domestic violence leave and compulsory provision of separate amenities for women workers. The agreement also locks in the calendar of rostered days off that guarantees some weekends and days off to relieve the long hours demanded of workers in the construction industry (56-hour weeks are standard, with many doing more).

Workers at the Festival Hall meeting were assured that the agreement continued and strengthened the traditionally strong, and hard fought for, Victorian pattern agreement. However, it was also reported that there are some concessions in the deal. Changes to do with the inclement weather clauses will mean that, instead of going home after four hours of rain, crane crews will stay on site if other trades are working under cover. A temperature of 35 degrees will still mean workers go home: but if that temperature is reached for three days in a row, on the third day workers will stay on site (though not working) for up to 90 minutes if a cool change is forecast.

A full assessment of the agreement will have to wait for the exact wording, which will be made available to workers in coming weeks ahead of formal Fair Work ballots on the deal. But there are several key tests that any agreement will have to meet if building workers are going to overcome the challenges facing us.

The draft agreement contains a clause on sham subcontracting. One crucial test of the agreement is the extent to which it strengthens the union’s hand in dealing with underpaying and non-compliant companies. These companies have proliferated in recent years, especially in the finishing trades and on mid-sized and large suburban jobs.

The vicious anti-union building code, proposed by the Liberal government in 2014 but not yet passed into law, leaves a question mark hanging over the whole deal. The code prohibits companies that tender for federally funded work from signing an enterprise agreement that provides for shop stewards, a fixed calendar for rostered days off, restrictions on subcontracting, ratios for apprentices and many other crucial features of the pattern agreement.

The Master Builders Association, backed by the federal government, refuses to negotiate an agreement that doesn’t comply with the proposed code. However, the CFMEU was able to reach a draft agreement with a breakaway group of companies that were prepared to sign on to a deal in return for some certainty around costs and industrial peace as the industry approaches a new peak of speculative apartment building.

The coming weeks will show which companies are willing to sign this agreement and which are keen to dig in their heels for a fight. With the union pushing for companies to sign the deal by 1 July, we won’t have long to wait to find out. 

In the event of the 2014 code becoming law after the 2 July election, the CFMEU retains the right to terminate the agreement and pursue protected industrial action. As always, the only way to guarantee that construction workers meet the challenges facing us is to prepare the union for a serious industrial fight.