Workers who help maintain critical infrastructure from the likes of QBuild, Queensland Health and Transport and Main Roads today marched on parliament demanding better conditions.

The commission is recommending permanently repealing the controversial best practice industry conditions laws, known as BPIC, and seeking more skilled workers from overseas to build the workforce.

But unions see this as a way of watering down hard-fought worker rights built over previous decades.

“In particular, [it would be] winding back Queensland’s workplace health and safety laws, our labour hire licensing laws, and going towards importing migrant labour that will be at risk of further exploitation,” Queensland Council of Unions general secretary Jacqueline King said.

Australian Workers’ Union Queensland branch secretary Stacey Schinnerl said the move would “inevitably” lead to lower wages and worker exploitation.

Labor Opposition Leader Steven Miles agrees.

“That is the agenda, that is the secret hidden agenda of this Productivity Commission review,” he said.