Building and engineering maintenance staff at Brisbane’s Princess Alexandra Hospital walked off the job earlier this month after management sacked all labour hire workers.

Dissatisfaction on site has been building because management has refused to answer questions about the use of contractors and the low numbers of permanent employees and apprentices.

After the unions (ETU, AMWU, CFMEU and Plumbers) recently raised the issue with the hospital, management responded by immediately dismissing all labour hire workers, including some who had worked there for three years. One of those fired was performing electrical safety testing throughout the hospital, a process that is months behind schedule already.

When the sackings were announced, a morning union meeting was called at which that and other workplace issues were discussed. The final push for the walkout came when a supervisor stormed into the meeting and tried to kick the unions off site. His attempt to clear a room full of blokes with two security guards initially shocked those in the meeting; shock quickly turned into laughter for many and anger for others.

The next day we came back to site to learn that management had agreed to put some of the labour hire workers back on and provided unions with a time frame for its response to our concerns about job security. We have been asking for answers about the use of contractors and the lack of apprentices since the state Labor government was elected in January 2015.

The strike showed that the only way to get the bureaucrats to talk to us is by taking action. Confidence is high. Enterprise agreement negotiations have just started, and action like this shows that we are serious.