Back to the ration days for indigenous workers

by Liz Cush

Aboriginal workers in the Northern Territory employed in the building and construction industry are getting less than a quarter of the award pay of workers in NSW.

Peter Inverway, a building worker from Kalkaringi in the Northern Territory addressed workers at construction sites across Sydney and NSW last week to talk about the stripping back of pay and conditions under the federal Northern Territory intervention.

“In the late eighties we had the [Community Development Employment Project] program all around the Northern Territory and people were working for proper wages and proper work,” Mr. Inverway said.

“Since the intervention came in with the shire mob, there are no jobs available in the community now.”

Mr Inverway works 24 hours a week for a private company on a building site in his community but is paid the equivalent of the dole.

“Half my money goes into the basic card but I don’t see that,” Mr Inverway said.

“That’s only for ration, all my tucker, but I don’t get smoke out of that.”

CFMEU NSW Assistant Secretary, Brian Parker, says construction workers were horrified to hear that Aboriginal people employed on building sites in the Northern Territory are working 30 hours per week for less than four dollars per hour.

“The vast majority of Australian people would think it’s absolutely appalling,” Mr Parker said.

“Building workers see that here are the people who originated from this land being treated worse than second class citizens, right at the bottom of the barrel.”

Mr Inverway said workers in the Kalkaringi community were planning a strike for August 23, the anniversary of the 1966 Wave Hill walk-off.

“I think we have to make a stand about the intervention, we have to strike again,” Mr Inverway said.

“We are still going to keep on fighting for that and make it stop, because we need real wages and real work.”