Two large Melbourne building sites have recently closed temporarily because of coronavirus infections of workers. Opinion is divided among construction union members as to whether the industry should remain open, scale back or shut entirely. Current CFMEU state secretary John Setka has said construction should go ahead despite the pandemic. Credit:Chris Hopkins While some comments on the union’s popular Facebook site contained abuse – The Age has been sent nearly 100 screen shots of deleted posts – many simply questioned the union’s position. Mr Kingham, now a building worker, posted a number of times on the union’s Facebook page in late March and complained his posts were being deleted.

“I am getting really sick of the CFMEU deleting my posts,” Mr Kingham wrote. “Where is the democracy?" Loading “My phone is in meltdown with members telling me they will refuse to renew their tickets,” he wrote in another post. “I am urging everyone to pay their dues like I have.” Other construction workers accused the union – which has had a strong record on workplace safety – of siding with big business and Master Builders Victoria, and of putting profits ahead of members. “At the end of the day we are a commodity which is easily replaced,” one worker wrote. “We are economic fodder,” said another.

A regular theme of the posts was the CFMEU allegedly putting its financial interests ahead of safety, by keeping construction workers on the job so union fees could be collected. “[Member] dues before health, it’s disgusting,” posted one member. Loading A CFMEU spokeswoman referred The Age to the union’s social media policy, which said it removed abusive posts and ones that were “unlawful or misleading or totally irrelevant”. She defended the union’s support for keeping the building industry open. “The Premier's office, the Prime Minister's office, Master Builders Victoria and the union working group are all working together to keep the industry safe and operational,” she said. “We will continue to listen to the experts and have put all the recommended measures in place to protect workers.”

Builders working last week, in close quarters at Multiplex's Collins Arch building site in Collins Street. Construction has been halted on non-essential projects in cities such as New York and in New Zealand, and shut entirely in other countries – but in many the building industry continues despite the pandemic. Master Builders Victoria chief executive Rebecca Casson said the state's Chief Health Officer had exempted building and construction from a shutdown. Until that advice changed, she said, building works should continue. Work could continue safely if construction workers practised social distancing, she said. “Every day that we keep building sites operating safely and open is another day we keep thousands of people in work and thousands of families financially secure.” But building workers, on social media and in interviews with The Age, said it was hard, particularly on small CBD sites with hundreds of people, to work safely. They said many builders had just paid lip service to social distancing.

“I work in construction and really think it’s unsafe for sites to be open. The CFMEU close sites when there is two drops of rain but yet a killer virus seems to be OK,” one worker wrote. Sign up to our Coronavirus Update newsletter Get our Coronavirus Update newsletter for the day's crucial developments at a glance, the numbers you need to know and what our readers are saying. Sign up to The Sydney Morning Herald's newsletter here and The Age's here. “Construction industry is the 2020 Chernobyl,” said another, who said he had been kicked off jobs after making complaints on the Facebook page. Another worker who was also a union delegate said there was strong support to shutter the industry. “I wrote on one of the posts ‘I would rather be at home’ and that comment got deleted. I don’t see anything wrong with that comment, it’s probably how 90 per cent of CFMEU members feel.”

“I understand the economical consequences of my stance but as a human being with very young and elderly people in my close family,” he wrote, “I am more concerned about the consequences of going to work.”