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The Communication Workers Union (CWU) led a rally of about 300 independent contractors outside Service Stream’s office in Naarm/Melbourne on August 22, protesting the company’s proposed 20–30% rate cuts for subcontractors.

Protesters blocked traffic with a convoy of parked vans and vowed to continue demonstrating daily until their demands are met.

Service Stream, which holds contracts to expand and upgrade the National Broadband Network, hires subcontractors to carry out the work. Workers said their pay has failed to keep pace with rising living costs.

“All across Australia, inflation is going up, cost of living is going up every single day,” Nabeel, one of the contractors, said. “It’s very hard to live nowadays.”

“Last year, we were getting paid more for the same work — now we are getting paid less.

“Previously there were two companies in Melbourne. Now they just bring in one company, and cut the rates.”

CWU national assistant secretary James Perkins said that “all of these people here today are skilled workers; they deserve to be paid skilled wages … [the] rate cut is an absolute slap in the face to these workers. They deserve better.”

Nabeel explained the risks shouldered by subcontractors. “We work hard in the field. We pay for insurance and everything — if anything happens on the site, we are the ones responsible.”

“This is our first time [protesting]. We did not want to come here. If they agreed to sit at the table with us, we would not come here — but they were not listening to us. That’s our last option. We just joined the union to do a legal and peaceful protest … so they can listen to our voice.”

CWU Victorian branch secretary Troy McGuinness highlighted the broader importance of the contractors’ work. “Building the country’s fibre to the premises network is a vital piece of the infrastructure that carries this nation into the next century,” he said.