The CFMEU, the Foundation and the Slant

By Kim Dawson and Pat Menz

Feature image by Daniel Easton

A report on the unreported and under reported facts behind latest inquiry into the Qld CFMEU

The purpose of unions is to bargain for just wages, safe working conditions, procedural fairness and natural justice. The foundation of the CFMEU has been built by workers, and fought for by workers. This collective strength is viewed by the government at both Federal and State levels as a threat.  The slant is the ideological viewpoint taken by the media to support the government that has worked against wage increases, legislated against safe working conditions and ignored procedural fairness in the sacking of 270 CFMEU officials and many more delegates.  Media reporting on the current Inquiry has relied on logical fallacies such as guilt by association, and composition fallacies to justify the way the CFMEU has been treated.

In July of 2025, the Queensland government commissioned an inquiry into the Qld branch of the CFMEU.  This followed a report by Geoffrey Watson commissioned by the head of the administration Mark Irving, alleging bullying, misogyny and intimidation by the CFMEU Qld branch. The union was put into administration in August last year.  When the union was put into administration, Jade Ingham and Michael Ravbar were immediately sacked as heads of the Queensland union.  Both Ravbar and Ingham seem to be the primary focus of the Inquiry.

 Deputy Premier of Queensland Jarrod Bleijie had been a particularly vocal attack dog against the CFMEU, stating that the union needed to be turned upside down and shaken out. In his television interviews Bleijie has stated that the CFMEU is violent, misogynistic and cruel and claims that women on construction sites were subject to abuse. These statements have been treated as facts not allegations.  His speeches on news programs have focused on unions not acting in the workers interests.  Bleijie has also strongly come out against collective bargaining. Being against wage increase is not in any worker’s interest.

As industrial relations minister, Jarrod Bleijie has not worked for workers’ interests above that of big business and profit.  He has attacked union power on worksites by changing the workplace health and safety legislation.  Removing health and safety legislation does not target corruption, it targets oversite and workers safety, which is important in the construction industry.  In comparison to other states, Qld does not allow inspections without notice, and while other states also allow officials to take photographs and measurements, Queensland doesn’t.  The new legislation also adds bureaucracy to stop work orders that put workers’ lives at risk by creating unnecessary delays.  Since the CFMEU was plunged into administration construction workers have seen a downward trend with regards to wages, conditions and safety. 

The construction industry is the most dangerous industry in Australia, with the rate of serious injury claims far above the national average.  The construction industry is full of all kinds of people with all kinds of backgrounds because it is an industry that accepts people from different educational levels, backgrounds, and new immigrants.  1.35 million people work in the construction Industry nationally and Queensland employs 285,100 people. During the first week of December two construction workers lost their lives at non-unionised job sites in South East Queensland.  This went relatively unreported in the media.  This oversite is surprising considering the media writes about the CFMEU with daily articles that mostly relay hearsay as factual, particularly regarding Michael Ravbar and Jade Ingham.  As far as the media is concerned the glorious administration is doing a great job, and the Construction workers and their unions are baddies causing all manner of social harms. Construction workers are blamed for causing the housing crises and delaying major projects. The media has renamed the government and big business’ attack on a militant union and the erosion of working-class rights as a noble attempt to support workers and address corruption.  In reality,  the administration has stalled EBA’s and made it harder for the CFMEU to do its job in keeping workers safe.

There has been little mention about the fact that 4 lawyers have already walked away from the Qld Inquiry, citing serious concerns about the Inquiry’s management and operation.  The head of the Inquiry Stuart Wood has connections to the LNP and was a party member until 2020, made LNP party donations in 2023 and participates in conservative and pro-business circles such as the right-wing anti-union H.R. Nicholls society.   Like the H.R. Nicholls society, the administration has sought to weaken the CFMEU whilst claiming a moral and justifiable stance. The outcome has diminished worker power and given more power to the employers.  The media has presented statements made by witnesses like Jaqueline King from the QCU, and head of the AWU Stacey Schinnerl as facts instead of allegations.  This is deceitful especially since most of their allegations are hearsay as they weren’t present at the incidents they recount. Second hand accounts are unreliable.  Send three and fourpence.

The Queensland Inquiry follows the Federal Labor government’s decision to put the CFMEU into administration, following a channel 9 report of corruption in the union last August.  When the CFMEU was put into administration 270 officials were sacked. The administrator removed all elected officers including all full-time elected officers, rank and file members of state council, rank and file committee of management members, and rank and file delegates to CFMEU conferences.  All these workers were removed immediately without any recourse to a hearing, without any procedural fairness, and without any allegations being made against most of the members.   The officials, including Jade Ingham and Michael Ravbar, were sacked summarily without notice and without cause and were notified via a generic email from the administrator advising that they had been removed from office terminated from that moment. They were notified that they couldn’t work for another union for 5 years.

This administration has removed the fundamentals of the Judicial system, this being the presumption of innocence, a fair trial and natural justice.  These officials were sacked without individual allegations being put to them, without any evidence being tested, without the right to due process and without the right to reply.  Mark Irving says that Jade Ingham and Michael Ravbar ran the CFMEU like their own fiefdom. Jade and Michael were democratically elected from the rank-and-file members.  Mark Irving was not democratically elected. Therefore union members see it as their duty and obligation to stand up for fellow members when they have been unfairly treated and sacked without due process. The actual person in power of the fiefdom or the CFMEU is the administrator.  The administrator has the power to remove elected officials, sack union employees without fear of retribution, alter the rules of the union, to fully control its finances, expel ordinary union members, and disqualify union officials into the future  

The administration has gone against the ACTU’s own values and principles.  The ACTU principles state that they support the democratic structures of unions and structures within the union movement and decisions made by them, and that ‘We make decisions with an objective of achieving consensus or a decision of the majority after full consultation.’  Head of the ACTU Sally McManus has defended the administration and the extraordinary power that it holds over the CFMEU. 

Just as due process and procedural fairness has not been given to the 270 elected union officials who were sacked on mass with no warning and strict instructions preventing them from contacting union members, due process and procedural fairness has not been provided to the CFMEU by the media.  The media mostly report the statements of Mark Irving as fact rather than allegations and have opportunistically used the inquiry as a means to further denounce CFMEU members as sexist, violent and criminal, before the inquiry has heard the union delegate’s response to these allegations.    

Mark Irving has accused the Queensland branch of misogyny. The CFMEU is the biggest employer of apprentice women in the state of Queensland.  The CFMEU has been accused of being sexist and abusing women.   These allegations have come from Mark Irving, Sally McManus and the media. It was in fact one of the men employed by the administrator that was engaging in predatory behaviour towards female staff. Using the rhetoric of “supporting women’ as an excuse to attack unions is a hypocritical act that should anger every woman in the country.  It’s the bosses who benefit from keeping women down, it’s the bosses who benefit from the gender pay gap and the increasingly terrible working conditions of women,  and the only way to fight for women’s rights is to support and build real fighting unions  and show solidarity across unions and fight as a true class for better working conditions for women.  It is the media who has shown misogyny and repainted it as feminism, by stereotyping construction workers and supporting the government and big business that work against the interests of women.    

Media Entertainment and Arts Alliances are a powerful force that could cross the boundaries of all workers’ unions and help with the education of working-class issues. However, there are very few investigative journalists who report honestly on union issues, whether it’s the Nurses strikes, the teachers strikes or the CFMEU, workers are often seen as an enemy to big business by journalists. To survive journalists must sell their soul to the boss’s media, for example Mudoch and channel 9 and the ABC by the sky media plants with the long-term plan to privatise the ABC and make it a full-time boss’s media to brain wash the people.    Construction workers on unionized sites have specifically been demonized and stereotyped as violent when undertaking protected industrial action.  Construction workers were attacked by the media for striking for a heat policy by the Cross River Rail, when 60 workers were hospitalized and there were 2 fatalities.  Jade Ingham attended those strikes which lasted for 148 days.  Because Jade Ingham has shown solidarity with the construction workers the workers support him, a fact that has made Mark Irving either jealous or angry.

Last year the lack of union solidarity, and the willingness of MEAA to join in with the ALP and corporate bosses and mainstream media in spreading lies about the CFMEU was disappointing.  MEAA shared the lies told by Sally McManus and the government about the CFMEU. Sally McManus stated that only 11 officials were sacked, and that the CFMEU is corrupt, sexist and violent. These claims are false and rely on composition fallacies, such as asserting that because one CFMEU member committed a crime, the entire organisation is criminal.  If one woman was yelled at in a meeting, then the whole organisation must be sexist.  If CFMEU members were violent at a picket line, then the whole organisation fostered a culture of violence.  The composition fallacy states that the property of a part applies to the whole.

Reporting on the CFMEU is an opportunity to tell truthful stories, fulfilling the functions of the fourth estate to inform the public of what the government is doing so the public can make informed democratic decisions. The deliberate use of logical fallacies and one-sided reporting shows every major Australian paper is bought, hook line and sinker by the government and the bosses at the expense of working class people.    

The Australian media is biased. The good side, as far as the media is the side their bread is buttered, the side of big business and corporations.   The butter has been dripping all over the Queensland press as they cover the CFMEU inquiry.   They brag of ‘rampant lawlessness’ with no evidence, while the Construction arm of the CFMEU keeps working to inspect safety hazards on work sites, and address the actual lawlessness of the building companies and the Qld government as they care more about cutting costs than measures to keep workers safe. 

Unions represent people when they have been unfairly dismissed, and they fight every day for procedural fairness.  Even when faced with the threat of losing their jobs, workers continued to attend rallies in support of Michael Ravbar and Jade Ingham, demonstrating their strong sense of fairness.  The administrator was never acting with the union.  The administrator was acting as a boss, paying himself a tidy sum, changing the union rules and sacking people according to his personal whims. The media loves him because the media loves bosses.

In response to the CFMEU being placed into administration an alternative federal body was formed by the building trade unions called ‘Unions for Democracy’.   This body once established will herald a necessary move away from the Labor government’s control over unions.  An alternative federal body would protect workers’ rights from being reliant on big business which controls the government. 

Until then the media will continues to ignore basic union facts. Unions are made up of workers, and the administration has cost the CFMEU 6 million dollars. Four lawyers have walked out of an Inquiry led by someone with strong ties to the liberal government. No matter the outcome rank and file members will continue to show solidarity with the CFMEU. Workers will continue to fight for their rights in the future, because if they don’t then wage theft and exploitation will be normalized and construction workers lives will be more at risk.  Michael Ravbar and Jade Ingham will continue to be supported by the workers due to their support of workers, unlike Mark Irving and Sally McManus who dance to the tune ‘the working class can kiss my arse, I got the bosses job at last’.  Send three and four pence.