Source : Perth Now news
A union’s demand for barbecues every Friday for hundreds of construction workers and a stopwork over walking through shallow puddles have been aired at an inquiry.
Cross River Rail Project site manager Justin Bishop gave evidence in Brisbane on Tuesday to the Commission of Inquiry into the CFMEU.
He detailed a confrontation with CFMEU delegate Richie Atutolu in October 2024 over why workers had to use turnstiles to enter the worksite of contractor CPB.
The dispute at a pre-start staff meeting moved on to Mr Bishop being asked why he was not providing site barbecues for the entire workforce every Friday.
“I said, ‘we don’t have a budget to supply barbecues to 400 men or 600 men every Friday. It’s just not going to happen’,” he told Commissioner Stuart Wood KC.
It escalated from there with Mr Atutolu becoming aggressive towards another worker, telling him, “If you want a mouth off, let’s go for a walk” and “Get the f*** up”.
Mr Atutolu was sacked as CPB’s union-appointed safety representative after the confrontation.
Mr Bishop also revealed that up to 400 workers at the site were forced to stop work over a three millimetre puddle of water.
CFMEU officials said workers could not walk through the puddles.
“That’s the sort of stuff you deal with,” Mr Bishop told the inquiry.
“Four hundred or 350 men sitting in the shed over a genuine safety concern of three millimetres of water on the ground.”
Mr Bishop also detailed an incident in November 2024 when CFMEU organisers arrived at 3am to order a stopwork when they knew a 400-tonne canopy lift and placement was happening that day.
The union officials demanded Mr Bishop review safety documents to justify CPB’s authority for the lift, prompting hours of reviewing documents.
The CFMEU officials then crossed into an exclusion zone to stop work, prompting Mr Bishop to call police, who never arrived.
The inquiry is expected to hear from up to 30 witnesses during October’s block of hearings.
