NBN sham contracting must stop, says CWU

The Communications Workers Union (CWU) has called on the government to put a stop to sham contracting to facilitate the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN). CWU National President Len Cooper says the illegal employment arrangement has led to safety issues on the NBN.

According to Cooper, the CWU has been warning NBN Co and the government since the NBN project commenced that encouraging sham contracting would result in a disaster for the project.

Employers who engage in sham contracting avoid paying employees entitlements such as superannuation and annual leave by requiring the employees register as a business and work as independent contractors.

“If you take the Ballarat issue, you have NBN at the top, they have a contract for pit remediation with Telstra, Telstra contracts that work to Visionstream, Visionstream then contracted that work to Davcom who in turn subcontracted that work to local subbies,” Cooper said.

“By the time you are five times removed like this, what did they think was going to happen?

“Everyone is in it to make a buck and by the time that money trickles down to the employee employed as a contractor there are very few drops left and then they wonder why corners are being cut and worker and community safety are out the window.”

Cooper called for only genuine, secure employment arrangements to be used for the NBN project in order to avoid further safety issues.