The third-term Queensland Labor government has reached agreements with construction unions that include extraordinary levels of pay and working conditions.
Under the state’s Industry Best Practice Conditions policy, workers receive double time when it rains and an extra $1,000 per week for working on a project 30 miles or more from the employer’s address.
“The government should be an employer of choice, and working on our projects should be one of the best jobs you can get,” Premier Steven Miles said Tuesday in justifying the use of taxpayer money.
The pay rises across all sectors increase pay packages for crane operators over 700 tonnes to $2,394 per week and fourth-year adult electrical apprentices to around $44 per hour or $1,585 per week.
The third-term Queensland Labor government has signed surprising deals with construction unions (file image)
Those salaries are the first year of four successive 5 percent pay increases across the board (file image)
Those salaries are for the first year, with four successive 5 percent pay increases each year.
Added to the assured wage increases are countless loading payments and subsidies, such as the 300 percent loading for working on and between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day or Good Friday and Eastern Monday.
A “picnic day” will be held on the first Monday in December; Anyone who has to work on the day of the picnic receives double and a half wages.
Following the resignation of Annastacia Palaszczuk in December, Miles was finally given the nod following a deal reached with powerful unions, the Courier Mail reports.
Like all states and territories, Queensland businesses and agencies are battling to attract traders to their projects, and the Sunshine State’s momentum is greater than others as it builds infrastructure for the 2032 Olympics.
“We are paying what it costs to get workers to do the projects Queensland needs,” Mr Miles said.
Added to the assured wage increases are countless loading payments and subsidies, such as the 300 percent loading for working on and between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day or Good Friday and Eastern Monday (stock image ).
The union agreement will also have generous provisions for weather, both hot and cold, despite demands from both the public and private sectors to work on it.
The new rules dictate that work will cease when conditions reach 35°C, or 29°C, and 75 percent humidity.
Employees who must work in the rain will receive double pay “for all work performed in the rain and such pay will continue until they stop working.”
‘When employees are in the sheds because it has rained, or at starting time, morning tea time or lunch time and it is raining, they will not be required to go to work in a dry area or be transferred to other. site unless: it stops raining, a covered walkway has been provided, sheds are covered and employees can reach the dry area without going through the rain; or adequate protection is provided,” the new agreement states.
Master Builders Queensland chief executive Paul Bidwell told The Courier-Mail the contractor’s criticism of the deal was not about shortcutting safety or undermining workers’ rights.
‘It’s about ‘can we move forward and build’?’ he said.
The new rules dictate that when conditions reach 35C, or 29C and 75 per cent humidity, in south-east Queensland, work must cease.
“Because if we don’t do it, we’re not going to deliver all these houses plus the other projects that are needed.”
Large projects managed by private construction companies in southeast Queensland have been the scene of multiple deaths in recent months.
Surveyor Brad Arnold, 56, was crushed to death by a truck at Victoria Point, near Brisbane, in September.
“This tragic event serves as a powerful reminder of the risks we face daily in the construction industry,” said a fundraiser for Mr. Arnold.
Days later, apprentice Tyler Whitton, 17, fell down a hole at a Brisbane workplace and later died in hospital.
Daniel Sa’u, 29, died showing “signs of heat stress”, the CFMEU said, after leaving work on the major Cross River Rail project in Brisbane’s south in December.
