A recent CCF WA media release pointed out that the risks of implementing the CFMEU-friendly WA Best Practice Industry Conditions policy on Western Australian infrastructure projects far exceeded any potential rewards. When asked to respond, a State Government spokesperson took issue with our description of WA BPIC as a CFMEU enterprise agreement. Really? It could hardly be more obvious. Entire sections of WA BPIC are copied from CFMEU templates: the pay rates, the allowances, the CFMEU-specific benefits and conditions. BPIC even compels non-unionised businesses to check with the CFMEU before making decisions.

What has driven the State Government to take this extraordinary step of compelling private sector employers to replace their existing, lawful, Fair Work-endorsed enterprise agreements with a CFMEU agreement?
But let’s not portray this policy as a means to achieve fairness and decency, and let’s call WA BPIC what it is.

Well, according to the same government spokesperson, it’s to “provide decent working conditions” and ensure workers “are paid what they deserve”.

I'm sure it will come as a surprise to many that our industry's rates and conditions are so bad that this unprecedented government intervention is deemed necessary, and that Fair Work-endorsed EAs and the National Employment Standards are no longer decent.

The WA BPIC conditions are undoubtedly generous. There's the CFMEU-standard 36-hour week and fortnightly RDO. Employers must pay $5436.60 per year per employee to a CFMEU-nominated redundancy fund and for various insurances (as per the CFMEU template).

If this is how the State Government is going to define decent, then it risks setting an unreasonably high bar, which few employers in WA (including the State Government itself) can attain.

What about the claim that BPIC workers will be paid what they deserve? If that’s the case, then they will be some of the most extraordinarily deserving construction workers in WA. The only workers anywhere near as deserving are – you guessed it – those covered by other CFMEU enterprise agreements.

WA BPIC workers will receive about $10 per hour more than the typical over-award rates for civil construction workers on smaller government projects and residential subdivisions. They’ll also get up to $10 per hour more than Main Roads' own in-house construction workers, and experienced, diploma-qualified enrolled nurses in public hospitals.

That's a lot of less-deserving people.

Our State Government is a highly valued client, and civil contractors love creating important infrastructure. If the government wants all workers on major projects to receive CFMEU conditions and be paid CFMEU rates, we will of course oblige, and all of us as taxpayers will wear the cost (and with 5% annual pay rises locked in, that cost will keep growing).