Tate takes pride in blast from big union

GOLD Coast Mayor Tom Tate says he “must be doing something right” if he is getting up the nose of the country’s most powerful union.

Mayor Tate let rip at the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) on his Facebook yesterday after Gold Coast official Scott Vink led a worker protest blasting him during a Ruby towers site visit in Surfers Paradise.

“If the militant CFMEU union is throwing mud then I must be doing something right!”, posted the Mayor.

“What I can’t truly understand is these workers leaving a construction site to do a protest chant – a work site that has given them at least five years work into the future right here.

“I suppose with Vink onsite and leading them, a lot didn’t have a choice.”

Cr Tate pointed out Mr Vink’s $9000 fine last year after he admitted verbally abusing non-union workers in Broadbeach in 2014. A judge at the time called it “sheer thuggery” with “no place in the Australian workplace”.

Mr Vink told the Bulletin the protest wasn’t politically motivated but asked if it was personal said: “I don’t like him and he doesn’t like me so if you can call that personal ...”