The construction union has described a new multi-million dollar campaign by Caesarstone to stop high-silica benchtops from being banned as nothing short of evil.
Caesarstone, a global manufacturer of high-silica engineered stone, announced it will launch the advertising and lobbying campaign today in an effort to protect the profit it generates from deadly bench top products.
CFMEU National Secretary Zach Smith vowed his union would fight Caesarstone's campaign tooth and nail.
"This is the most blatantly evil corporate campaign I have ever seen," Mr Smith said.
"These scumbags are happy to sentence more Australians to death just so they can squeeze some extra profits from an easily replaceable construction material.
"We know hundreds of Australians have been served death sentence by cutting Caeserstone. Any person with a human heart, who hears the stories of silicosis victims, wants to get rid of Caeserstone right away. So what kind of person can hear victims' stories and decide to respond with an ad campaign of lies? It's monstrous.
"No one needs Caeserstone. It is a product that kills people. And it kills them young.
"Caeserstone should be apologising to Australia, but instead it is treating us like morons and telling us Australian lives are disposable.
"If Caeserstone's Australian boss, David Cullen, can find any scrap of decency within himself he will resign and apologise for this campaign. In the meantime, I will be personally urging Tony Burke and every other Australian politician to ignore Cullen's bullshit letters and to bar his slimy lobbyists from entering their offices.
"Ultimately Caeserstone's campaign will fail, because the CFMEU will fight with every ounce of our power to make sure that high-silica benchtops are banned once and for all.
"This is a fight we will win because we have to. But I am stunned, after all we now know, that we still have fight it."
