Union running 'criminal conspiracy' in VicA UNION is running a "criminal conspiracy" to control Melbourne's construction sites and is blackmailing a major concrete supplier, a royal commission has heard. BORAL says it has been frozen out of Melbourne's high rise construction business after the CMFEU black-banned the company as part of a "war" with developer Grocon.
Boral chief executive Michael Kane said he rejected the union's demand to stop supplying concrete to Grocon - and Boral and its contractors paid a heavy price.
He told the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption his company was an unintended target of the dispute, but it had still lost more than $8 million as a result.
"I was roadkill, I was an accident," Mr Kane said on Wednesday.
Despite getting a Supreme Court injunction against the CFMEU's ban, Boral trucks are still being turned away from construction sites and builders have stopped asking the company for quotes, he said.
"It's my considered opinion that, based on 41 years in the construction industry, that on the construction sites in Melbourne the law doesn't apply - the law is applied by the CFMEU," Mr Kane said.
Boral executive general manager for construction supplies in Victoria Paul Dalton said he met CFMEU secretary John Setka to talk about the ban.
"We're at war with Grocon and in a war you cut the supply lines," Mr Setka allegedly told Mr Dalton.
"The CFMEU will decide who gets what and what market share Boral will get."
Mr Kane said a corporate manager who spoke about dividing market share through intimidation would be facing charges in court.
"This is a criminal conspiracy to interfere in the market place. It's blackmail by any other definition I've ever heard of," Mr Kane said.
Mr Kane said Boral's share of the Melbourne CBD high rise market had gone from nearly 40 per cent to less than 10 per cent since the ban started in April 2013.
He described the CFMEU's tactics as "cartel behaviour", and there seemed to be no legal response to it.
Commissioner Dyson Heydon asked Boral to provide more details of the efforts it made to get a legal response from the Supreme Court, the ACCC and the Fair Work Commission.
"The evidence you are giving is very disturbing in terms of the unreality of legal protection," Mr Heydon said.
The commission also heard evidence that as recently as Monday customers told Boral they could not use them for a job because the site was controlled by the CFMEU.
Comment was being sought from the CFMEU.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...onspiracy-in-vic/story-fni0xqi3-1226983057835
