The State Government could have used its new construction ‘Code of Practice’ to tackle the real issues facing the industry:

• Lack of apprentices,
• Jobs being lost as imports undercut locally made products
• Bosses sending companies bust owing workers money
• Sham contracting rip offs

Instead the Liberals want to force builders to sign on to a war against workers.

Employers will be tied up in anti-union red tape. If they can’t prove to Ted Baillieu’s new taskforce that they are getting in the way of workers being represented by their union, they will be struck off the government tender list.

Baillieu also wants to outlaw project agreements for jobs under $100 million and encourage the use of labour hire and contractors. 

There are plenty of things that could be done to make public works jobs run better. Holding builders accountable for incompetence and failure to manage projects properly would be a good start.

Ideological Bias
But the code is only about stripping away workers' rights and working conditions. It exposes the Liberals’ ideological bias.  It is identical to the code introduced by John Howard.

Along with the planned attacks and broken promises for nurses, teachers and public servants, this code exposes Baillieu as a typical anti-worker Liberal like Kennett and Howard.

Construction unions have written a combined response to the proposed code. Read/Download