It has been one year since the CFMEU was put under administration by the Albanese government. Since then, there have been a federal election, a failed high court challenge, and a handful of days of unprotected strike action. EBAs have continued to be negotiated (despite hurdles from the FWC and bosses), a few significant industrial disputes are in play and for the most part members have stuck with their union.

But business as usual is not an acceptable mindset when an Administrator and his highly paid squad of hacks and lackeys are slowly draining the union’s coffers. Administration is an affront to one of the core principles of trade unionism — that the union is run by members for members. CFMEU members have no idea what the Administration is doing, or why. Rank and file workers should continue to challenge Administration. But in addition to that, workers need to regain control of their union.

There is no “quick fix” to getting rid of Administration. But when confronted with the question of “what now?” workers should focus their efforts on what will build power and capacity for action back into the rank and file.

A monumental interruption

A key part of the Albanese Government’s legislation that put the CFMEU into Administration was the immediate removal of 270 union officials from their positions in the CFMEU — paid and voluntary. This included Secretaries, Assistant Secretaries and other executive position holders, as well as rank and file members from their positions on Branch Councils, Committees of Management and as elected conference delegates.

The scrapping of a generation of union leadership, and their replacement with Administration appointees who have never worked a day on a construction site, create a huge risk of a monumental interruption in the transfer of history, knowledge and traditions. The whys and hows of the CFMEU are at risk of being lost. So many things that we take for granted in our unions aren’t written in the rules or included in an induction. They are passed from generation to generation through shared experiences.

What does it mean for a union if its leadership has never participated in a strike, let alone organised one?

Muscle memory

Unions operate on muscle memory. Only the continued practice of the activities that make up a union’s identity will ensure they are preserved and maintained. If activities are unable to be practised, they must at least be remembered.

If we take the example of workers downing tools if there is a fatality on site. In Victoria in the late 1990s it was routine that if a worker died on site, all CFMEU members would walk off the job for the day often with no loss of pay. Over time, and under the harsh realities of the ABCC, this practice changed. While workers are not in a position to reinstitute the policy of shutting down all sites in the case of a fatality at this moment, it is vital that rank and file know and remember this is how it once was, and that it could be this way again.

It is vital that members learn the history of the CFMEU and its predecessor unions and that this history is contextualised within the broader history of the union movement and industrial relations in this country. It is within this history that members can find the origins of the current situation in which they find themselves. And it is also here that they will find answers as to how their union can survive this period of disruption, too. An understanding of the union’s past not only provides us with context of its present, it offers members an inheritance of hard-earned lessons — mistakes made and triumphs won — that need not be learned all over again.

Mark Irving is not a werewolf

While history has some answers for us, it is the here and now in which workers must act. The organising strategy of rank-and-file members should expand from just organising against Administration to organising to be the union.

Mark Irving is not a werewolf. There is no silver bullet to magically rid the CFMEU of Administration. There is no clever legal maneuver or one-two punch of a social media strategy that will end Administration. Mark Irving has a lot of power, but he does not have all the power.

Now more than ever, rank and file members must continue to organise on the job to ensure the CFMEU continues to be a militant; safety-focused; highly disciplined and effective union. On site, far away from Mark Irving and his Administration team, workers can simply act as the union. They don’t need to ask permission. They are the union.

Stand up, fight back

The aim should be for an organised and interconnected network on job sites in capital cities, states, and the whole country. The historical precedent for such a network lies within the history of the NSW Branch of the BLF. Faced with an incompetent, corrupt and right-wing leadership, the Rank and File Committee gradually organised a network of members across Sydney and NSW. And as one Rank and File Committee member Joe Ferguson, later explained, eventually “it came to a position where we started to run the jobs with the workers on the job, not the union”.

Rank and file workers do not need a cabal of lawyers and consultants to tell them how to keep job sites safe; ensure wages are correctly paid and that conditions are maintained. There is a rich history in the construction industry of advocating for greater worker control on job sites, short experiments of actual worker control and the establishment and successes of shop or job committees on building sites. These are not new ideas, but they can provide a new way to push back against Administration by rendering them irrelevant to the day-to-day work of the union on job sites.

Organisers, delegates and union staff who have the best interests of members and the union at heart will not be threatened by this. They will see this as a vital step to ensure the survival of the union they helped build.

Rank and file workers building power in this way, is also the first step towards being able to organise the level of mass industrial action that many workers have been waiting to happen. With leadership structures decimated by Administration, workers can no longer wait for the call to industrial action. Rather, a critical mass of workers must organise themselves to make that call, and to pull off significant industrial action: whether that be levelled at the Administration, a state government, the Federal Government or the whole damn lot of them.

Knowledge is power

In all likelihood, Administration will not last forever. And in fact, Mark Irving could put the wheels in motion of it ending by calling elections whenever he wants. It is unlikely he will do this any time soon, but rank and file workers can unite in the call for elections to occur this year. But beyond calling for elections, rank and file workers need to start preparing for elections.

It is highly likely that the ACTU and others will work together and use their significant resources, connections and experience to mount a ticket to contest a future election held in the CFMEU. For the rank and file to be able to compete, preparations need to begin immediately.

So much of this work is hard, unenjoyable, and often a boring slog. Union rules are written by lawyers in a dense and often incomprehensible way. But reading these rules is key to understanding how the union operates. The rules are particularly useful for understanding how different positions in the union are elected, and how the different decision-making bodies operate and interact. To be able to contest an election, this information is crucial.

Non-negotiables

Contested elections have not been a regular occurrence in the CFMEU which means a steep learning curve and development of skills and resources. Rank and file workers will need to develop processes for deciding who the best candidates are and how to stage an election campaign. It will be vital to find assistance and advice across the broader union movement to do this.

Before embarking on an election campaign, the rank and file and their chosen candidates should have a clear consensus on the priorities and principles of their union, not as it operates now under Administration, or how it ran before Administration — but how the membership would like to see it operate.

The Administration and un-elected Executive Officers may try to dictate from above what being a CFMEU member means, but only the members of the union can form the identity of the union. What are the non-negotiables? What is the essence of the union? What should be preserved? What is worth changing? These are the questions that can only be answered by members.

If you don’t fight, you lose

The CFMEU has been under attack for most of its thirty-three-year history. Its predecessor unions similarly faced sustained attacks. But as the often-repeated homily of BLF legend John Cummins goes “You’re only as good as your last blue”. This blue between Administration and the rank-and-file will be the definitive dispute for this generation of CFMEU members. How the battle is fought will shape the identity of the CFMEU as much as the ultimate outcome. In this period of anger, fear and uncertainty, there is a huge opportunity for CFMEU members to come together and organise themselves into a fighting rank and file. This work is necessary: for the union, for members, for workers and to ensure the legacy of the CFMEU as a militant, fighting and organised union.