Libby Mettam: Cook must show support for frontline workers, not CFMEU

Premier Roger Cook has made it abundantly clear the CFMEU is a hill he is prepared to defend.

Despite mounting evidence of corruption, standover tactics and criminal and gang infiltration of the CFMEU, Mr Cook continues to hold the militant union high.

However, for the unions that represent our frontline workers, no such love.

The Premier handed CFMEU members working on government projects a 25 per cent pay increase just months after the union threw its weight behind his bid to take WA’s top job.

Other unions — which may not have been so generous to Labor — have not had such gratuitous treatment from the Cook Government.

Our police officers, nurses, hospital workers, teachers, firefighters and child protection workers, have been forced to fight tooth and nail for percentage pay increases just a fraction of what was handed to the CFMEU.

Just this week, the WA Police Union rejected as an “outright insult” a new wage deal from the State Government.

The union is asking for a 13.5 per cent wage increase over two years; 8.5 per cent in the first year, followed by 5 per cent.

Barely more than half of what was handed to CFMEU members.

The Cook Government has offered an 11.5 per cent increase over three years; 5 per cent in the first year, 3.5 per cent in the second and 3 per cent in the third.

Is it any wonder experienced police officers are leaving the force in record numbers?

The Police Union is struggling for a respectful offer, while the CFMEU gets a willing leg up from the Premier.

Asked in Parliament this week if the Police Union would have been made a better offer if they had, like the WA CFMEU, made a $25,000 donation to WA Labor, the Premier was quick to wax lyrical about his Government’s treatment of its public servants.

“We work with all our public sector unions to make sure they get fair wages and good conditions that meet the needs of the members, and that they continue to be proud members of our public sector,” he said.

It was the Cook Government’s “work” with the State School Teachers Union that led to WA teachers taking strike action this year for the first time in more than a decade.

After months of pitched negotiations, a stop-work rally and a strike, the union grudgingly agreed, in April this year, to a 12 per cent wage increase delivered over three years, instead of the 12 per cent over two years it had been seeking.

The deal was struck under threat of a potentially worse outcome through government-mandated arbitration.

Western Australian public schools have the biggest class sizes in the nation and the number of teachers leaving the profession has increased from 600 in 2020 to 1200 last year and an expected 1500 this year.

And the “work” with the State’s biggest single union, the Australian Nursing Federation, led to the union becoming so frustrated with the Cook Government that it formed its own political party with the intention of running at least one candidate in the 2025 State election.

After months of bitter negotiations that included rallies and a strike that earned the union a fine, the ANF accepted a 3 per cent annual pay rise with a professional development allowance for all nurses and midwives between $700 and $1400.

The ANF had been negotiating for a 5 per cent pay rise and a tangible timeline for enforceable nurse-to-patient ratios.

Interestingly, the ANF eventually accepted the Cook Government’s offer as their next wage negotiation was due to start this year.

It’s a safe bet the ANF will not accept 3 per cent this time around.

Rolling shutdowns of Community Services offices across the State are also still happening this week as child protection workers walk off the job in protest against the Cook Government’s underfunding of child protection in WA.

According to the CPSU/CSA, child protection workers in WA are having to juggle the cases of up to 40 children in care at any given time.

The WA Industrial Relations Commission has previously ruled that workers should not carry a caseload of more than 15 cases.

The Premier must show the frontline workers of WA he has their back — and at the same time let the militant CFMEU know its tactics have no place in Western Australia.

If the Premier doesn’t show some backbone, there are dark days ahead.