Outgoing CFMEU boss John Setka made a menacing night-time visit to the family home of a fellow senior union official to dump a suitcase scrawled with a message attacking the official as a “dog”.
Setka’s act, caught on video, forms part of a major investigation into the construction union by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review and 60 Minutes. Setka resigned immediately from his CFMEU position on Friday night amid repeated questioning as part of that investigation.
The investigation reveals Setka is just one of a number of CFMEU figures – still serving the union – engaged in serious misbehaviour.
It includes covertly recorded footage capturing a senior construction union official threatening to bash the owners of a small Indigenous construction firm engaged on a $761 million federal and Victorian Labor government road project.
In revelations that will deepen the crisis at the CFMEU and place significant pressure on federal and state Labor governments, the footage also shows another top union official boasting about how the CFMEU secretly controls the $100 billion Big Build road and rail infrastructure program in Victoria and can black-ban companies from government sites.
On Saturday, this masthead revealed how former leaders of bikie gangs, along with other underworld figures, had infiltrated the CFMEU’s ranks and, in some cases, Labor government projects in Victoria and NSW, using preferential union treatment to profit.
In response to the revelations, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned Setka’s behaviour and Victoria’s opposition called for an independent inquiry.
The series will reveal further concerns about high-level corruption in the coming days.
CFMEU assistant national secretary Leo Skourdoumbis.Credit: 60 Minutes
Setka’s extraordinary evening visit in May to the suburban home of CFMEU assistant national secretary Leo Skourdoumbis was only discovered after a neighbour’s CCTV cameras captured the long-serving construction union boss dropping a suitcase bearing the words “Leo the Dog”.
Skourdoumbis has been fighting for several years to separate his arm of the CFMEU, which covers manufacturing, from the Setka-controlled construction division.
Suitcase that CFMEU assistant national secretary Leo Skourdoumbis says John Setka left on his driveway.
“There are many examples in recent years where manufacturing division members have been attacked, intimidated, harassed, and bullied [by Setka’s construction division] simply because they happen to hold a manufacturing division union ticket,” he said.
Skourdoumbis is the first senior CFMEU official to offer a detailed critique of the construction union’s misbehaviour under Setka and his allies.
The veteran unionist said the message behind Setka’s evening visit to his home was clear: “You speak out against us, we know where you are and we can get to you.”
‘Don’t f— with me’: Union threats on multibillion-dollar projects
The investigation into the CFMEU by this masthead has also uncovered covert footage of senior construction union officials engaged in standover-style tactics in March 2022.
The video was filmed on-site at the Victorian and federal Labor government-funded upgrade of Melbourne’s Monash Freeway.
It records a senior CFMEU official, Joel Shackleton, repeatedly threatening to bash two owners of a small Indigenous labour hire company, Marda Dandhi, aligned with the rival Australian Workers Union.
Shackleton tells one of the owners that he will “f—ing end you c— and you know it, don’t f— with me. I’ll f—ing take your soul and I’ll rip your f—ing head off, don’t f— with me, c—. F— you, you’re a f—ing dog”.
The second company owner is also called a “f—ing dog” and “germ” and threatened with a severe bashing.
CFMEU official Joel Shackleton was involved in an ugly altercation on a publicly-funded road project.
The covert video also provides a rare insight into the CFMEU’s control of government-funded megaprojects.
It captures a second high-ranking CFMEU official, Gerry McCrudden, warning that any firms without the construction union’s backing — in the form of CFMEU-endorsed enterprise bargaining agreements – would be unofficially black-banned from all Big Build sites due to the union’s links to key contractors.
On the covert recording, McCrudden describes how the Big Build projects are CFMEU jobs – he calls them “our jobs” – and asserts that large, or ‘tier 1’, Big Build contractors were CFMEU-controlled and would not allow non-CFMEU backed firms to operate.
Under Australian law, it is unlawful to force a company’s employees to join a certain union, while black-banning a firm (stopping it securing work) unless it complies with union wishes is also against the law.
McCrudden tells the Marda Dandhi owners that their firm’s CFMEU enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) will not be renewed, and because it is “not getting an [CFMEU] EBA”, the firm is “not gonna be able to come on all our jobs”.
CFMEU organiser Gerry McCruddenCredit: CFMEU
“Youse [sic] wanna go with [rival Australian Workers Union] AWU and get an AWU agreement, that’s alright, youse will not come on with our mobs,” McCrudden says before listing the lead contractors selected to complete Victoria’s state and federally funded multibillion- dollar Big Build.
“We’ve got EBAs with f—ing McConnell Dowell, Fulton Hogan, CPB, we’ve [the CFMEU has] got them all. We’re going onto f—ing Winslow next,” McCrudden says. “We’ve completed tier 1s. We’ve got them all. And youse [sic] won’t be coming in with our companies.”
McCrudden hung up when asked about the incident. Shackleton did not respond to questions. The CFMEU did not answer direct questions about the behaviour.
On Saturday, this masthead reported how a range of bikies, underworld figures and convicted criminals have secured lucrative union roles or had launched firms with union backing, including on major government projects.
The intimidation directed towards Marda Dandhi by the CFMEU has also been directed at fellow union officials.
It was this type of behaviour that had driven Skourdoumbis to spend months lobbying the Albanese government to pass laws enabling his members to break with the CFMEU’s construction division.
“Because we’re sick of our members being tainted by the bad behaviour, the bullying, and the intimidation of the CFMEU, and more particularly, its construction union, led by John Setka,” he said. “Our members deserve better, they don’t deserve to be linked to such an organisation, and we wanna be able to give them a say in the future of their union.”
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Even against that backdrop, Skourdoumbis said he was shocked to see Setka on the CCTV.
“I was just really, really, shocked, surprised, and, I’ve gotta say, pretty angry that he’d go to these lengths,” said Skourdoumbis, a veteran unionist known in the labour movement for his anti-corruption stance.
The union split is not the only source of tension between the former friends, with Skourdoumbis previously offering support to Setka’s estranged wife Emma Walters.
Setka was convicted of domestic violence offences against Walters in 2019.
He did not respond to requests for comment from the investigation but resigned suddenly on Friday, citing media inquiries.
“If my stepping down can stop these malicious attacks on our members and officials and allow this great union to continue to fight for our members, for their wages and conditions, so that they go home safely to their families each day, then I’m happy,” he said in a statement.
Setka has targeted anyone who failed to offer him support through that period, including the ACTU leadership, which called for Setka’s resignation in 2019, along with 13 national unions, over his domestic violence. ACTU leader Sally McManus was attacked as a “stooge”.
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Setka led a successful push to remove Michael O’Connor as the union’s national secretary despite O’Connor remaining publicly silent on calls for Setka to resign from his job.
“For people to try to portray me as some misogynist pig that bashes women is absolutely disgraceful,” Setka told a national executive meeting in 2020 defending his conduct. “I ain’t going to wear that; that’s just absolute bullshit.”
“I think he’s seeking revenge,” Skourdoumbis said of Setka, who has previously used surveillance and a former homicide detective to secretly monitor his political opponents within the union.
“He feels that we didn’t support him during his domestic violence issues of a few years ago … and he’s gonna seek whatever retribution he can against those people who didn’t stand with him, didn’t support him, or condemned him.”
Setka’s campaign recently extended to the AFL, when he said he would target construction projects of the football league unless it sacked its head of umpiring, Stephen McBurney, who previously ran the controversial building industry watchdog.
The AFL said it would stand by McBurney.
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Skourdoumbis said over time he fell out with his former friend Setka over his behaviour and increasingly noticed a “sinister side” to Setka he had never suspected.
“He increasingly became aggressive, abusive, and I think wanted to use our personal friendship against my union, which I was never going to do.”
Skourdoumbis said Setka got away with it because the elected leaders of his construction division “who should know better” had “an attack of the jelly bellies” and had not stood up to him.
“Leadership isn’t about turning a blind eye. It’s about confronting bad behaviour where you see it in your trade union and making sure you stamp it out.”
Skourdoumbis said there was no need for “repressive” regulators, such as the former Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), to police any union.
“Unions are constituted by union rules. All that’s lacking is the political will to enforce those rules sometimes. And that’s what’s happening at the moment in that union.”
See more from the investigation online on Sunday night and on 60 Minutes from 8pm
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