Australian Industry Group’s Innes Willox and CFMEU’s National Secretary Dave Noonan have warned there could be disruption to the Commonwealth projects as the ABCC is updated. Picture: Kym Smith

Employers are also warning of widespread disruption to thousands of projects if they are forced to renegotiate deals with the construction union to become compliant with the new rules, The Australian reports.

The warning comes after it was reported the Turnbull Government would reintroduce the Australian Building and Construction Commission laws next week after Senator Derryn Hinch indicated he would support the tougher measures.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox yesterday called on unions to ensure agreements were compliant “or else the jobs of thousands of their members who work on government projects will be at risk”.

“There is a massive task ahead in renegotiating thousands of enterprise agreements, having the proposed new agreements assessed by the ABCC, and having the agreements approved by the Fair Work Commission,’’ he said.

“All parties need to pull out all stops if widespread industry disruption is to be avoided and the objective of achieving a more productive construction industry is to be achieved.”

Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union national secretary Dave Noonan told The Australian the union would not rule out seeking higher pay or better conditions in exchange for renegotiating agreements with more than 3000 companies that were not currently complaint with the new code.

The companies will have until the end of August to become compliant.

“The nine months is essentially irrelevant,’’ he told the publication.

“As soon as the deal goes through, the commonwealth will take thousands of companies out of the market for commonwealth construction work, including a majority of tier one companies.

“You can imagine those that are left would be in a very good position to put their rate up.”