A Canberra building contractor was told his firm would be kicked off its building sites unless it agreed to pay inexperienced builders' labourers up to $90,000 a year, a royal commission has been told.
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Troy Armstrong of Claw Constructions said a Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union staffer told him he would receive active assistance in obtaining work if he joined the union and signed the enterprise bargaining agreement.
Mr Armstrong told Monday's hearing of the royal commission into unions that he had met the union's Tony Vitler at McDonald's in Fyshwick in May or June, 2012.
"During the meeting Tony started telling me how the CFMEU could help my business and could increase more business if we signed up memberships with the CFMEU," he said.
"We exchanged words to the following effect:
"Tony said: 'If you come to the party and sign the EBA with us we can guarantee you work.'
"I said: 'How can you guarantee me work?'
"Tony said: 'We make sure IC and Pacific take the big jobs in town and we will make sure the little jobs go to you'.
"I said: 'I find that hard to believe as I constantly tender jobs against IC and Pacific. Some I win, some they win.'
"He [Tony] replied: 'This is the way the industry is going and the other formwork companies in town are signing EBAs and we will take control of the jobs. We will soon be telling you which ones you can and can't go on'. If you want to be with the CFMEU you have to abide with the policy to get onto CFMEU sites.'
Mr Armstrong said the proposed EBA would have sent him broke.
"I never want to sign an EBA with the CFMEU or anyone else because they are liars, thugs and not worried about safety," he said.
"They just use safety as a method of blackmailing business and people to sign up with them. The CFMEU are just about making money for themselves."
When pressed on this statement under cross-examination, Mr Armstrong refused to withdraw it.
He said he would have been happy to sign a fair EBA at this point but drew the line at paying an unqualified person $90,000 a year.
He told Mr Vitler: "We are still a small business... don't you care about small business?"
Mr Armstrong said Mr Vitler replied: "I don't give a f---- about small business. Go back and work for Pacific. If you can't beat them, join them."
John Agius, a lawyer acting for the CFMEU, put it to Mr Armstrong he was anti-union.
"You're against the idea of workers coming together and collectively bargaining so that collectively they can get better conditions of employment and better pay," Mr Agius said.
Mr Armstrong replied: "I'm not against that."
Mr Agius put it to Mr Armstrong that the CFMEU had raised valid safety issues, which resulted in improvement notices and two prohibition notices, on Claw Construction's sites.
Mr Armstrong said: "I'm all for safety. I just don't see the CFMEU pushing it," he said. "All I see the CFMEU pushing upon me is money, money, money [and] memberships.
"What happened after that meeting at McDonald's [was that] they went out to my sites at Erindale and Forrest and threatened to close me down."
Mr Armstrong said that while WorkSafe had issued notices relating to sites on which his workers had been employed, those notices had not been in relation to work Claw Constructions had carried out.
Mr Agius said: "You admit then, don't you, that the CFMEU had an impact on safety?"
Mr Armstrong replied: "I'd say WorkCover had the impact".
