Steel industry demands more local jobs

A rare alliance between employers and unions will fight for more Australian manufactured steel to be used in the mining boom.

Industry groups such as the Australian Steel Institute and the Australian Stainless Steel Development Association have joined forces with the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) to lobby the Queensland government to boost local jobs in the steel fabrication sector.

In what's been described as an unprecedented event, they are pushing for new legislation that would force major resource projects to have a percentage of Australian fabricated steel.

They are also calling for tender processes to be longer, in English, and at a scale that provides a level playing field for local suppliers.

And they want miners to be forced to provide regular reports on how they involve local engineering, detailing and fabrication businesses - and for those reports to be made public.

AMWU state secretary Andrew Dettmer said there had been dramatic job losses in Queensland's steel-making sector, with Brisbane's Gay Constructions downsizing from 120 staff to 65 over the past two-and-a-half years and Beenleigh Steel Fabrications dropping 100 staff in the past 12 months.

"That pattern is repeated across the entirety of the steel fabrication industry and steel detailing industry in Queensland," he told reporters in Brisbane on Thursday.

"There is not enough local content being included into these resource projects, there is not full, fair and reasonable opportunity for those companies to get a guernsey and what we're saying is that there needs to be a change in policy."

He said companies, such as Gay Constructions, have been given only two weeks to tender for multi-million dollar projects or have been told they have to tender in foreign languages or standards that are foreign to Australia.

"They are the things that make local content almost impossible to achieve in Australia and that is the thing that we need to see fixed," he said.

ASI state manager John Gardner said only 10 per cent of Australian manufactured steel was used in Australian projects.

"We think that is very small and in the middle of a mining boom you should not have companies downsizing," he told reporters in Brisbane.

"Fabricators right across the board are suffering because of offshore structural steel work."

Gay Constructions general manager Brett Mathieson said morale was low and workers were unsure if they would still have a job in the weeks ahead.

He argues if Australia is to keep its manufacturing industry, intervention is needed.

"There is certainly an argument that Australian-made costs more, but if you look at the Australian standards that need to be met ... if you look at the qualifications that people have in our workshops against offshore, those things need to be taken into consideration," he said.