BY TIM STEWART
Since the election of the federal Liberal-National Coalition government in 1996, very few unions have been prepared to adopt an attitude of struggle at all costs. Instead of employing tactics aimed at winning gains against the bosses and demonstrating the strength of collective action, a majority of union officials have instead remained mute and pinned their hopes on the re-election of a federal Labor government.
The Transport Workers Union however, has been in the news a number of times over campaigns to improve wages and conditions for their members. In particular, the focus has been on owner-drivers working the crushing conditions of an unregulated free-market. Green Left Weekly spoke to Hughie Williams, Queensland state secretary of the TWU about the results of their 18-month campaign in the long distance transport industry.
The TWU has focused on setting an industry wide standard of freight rates, to stop owner-drivers having to consistently under-cut each other. The effect of unregulated rates paid per load has resulted in drivers almost doubling their driving hours, illegally completing their log books, living on sleep suppressants and taking pay cuts in order to guarantee the next load.
To achieve minimum freight rates, the TWU had to embark on a massive publicity campaign within the industry, employ "blockade-style" actions at truck interchanges and freight forwarding stops at places like Wacol outside of Brisbane and in Newcastle. At the same time, the TWU harnessed community anger about rising petrol prices to raise the stakes in the publicity battle about the impact on long distance truck drivers. This managed to bring industry and government to the bargaining table, with the promise of an independent audit to calculate a minimum rate of payment for haulage.
"Now that we've got the rates however, we've got to police them", Williams explained to Green Left Weekly.
"What we have to do now because of the nature of the industry, we have to start going around saying to the bigger employers who employ owner-drivers the rate is $1.46 per kilometre and you must pay it", he said, pointing out that many employers were reluctant to begin paying the recommended rates.
"We shall be singling out the bigger employers like Toll, Linfox or Finemores to begin paying this rate. If they don't pay this rate it's up to us to cause all industrial impediments to them to try and ensure that they pay it. This may include drawing on the support of the TWU members in the yard for the loading and unloading of trucks to make sure the loads don't move until the sustainable rates are paid."
Williams pointed out further difficulties in enforcing the pay rates, because owner-drivers are not covered by an award and are considered to be "self-employed contractors". As owner-drivers they are not deemed to be employees so have no right to be represented in the arbitration commission. They've got no rights against the big employers who say "there's a load to Perth or Melbourne, take it or leave it because somebody else will", quipped Williams.
He argued "whilst we've negotiated this established freight rate through government and industry talks, we've got another arm of the government — Alan Fells of the ACCC — saying they will prosecute us heavily if we try and implement it."
The TWU is determined to follow through on the "sustainable, safe rates" campaign for two reasons: to make sure the drivers are being paid correctly so that they can survive, and to improve the overall safety on our roads.
"If you've got a 45 tonne truck hurtling along the highway and there's only a thin white line between you and the truck coming the other way, they only need to fall asleep or lose their concentration for the truck to veer onto the wrong side of the road — and you won't be seeing the end of your holidays", remarked Williams.
The TWU covers general transport couriers to container trucks, oil and milk tankers, airline caterers, and armoured car workers in Queensland, with a membership totals around 16,500. Over the past year, the TWU has tested out organising in the taxi driving industry and the fast food industry; in particular setting retainer rates for Domino's pizza delivery.
On a broader union campaigns, the TWU has been supported the ACTU wages safety net campaign. While Hughie Williams thinks the safety net should be $36 (rather than the $28 argued by the ACTU) he said "it's important that we get the general award rates up for the non-unionised workers at the moment because when we're going for an EBA, those lower paid workers can tender for jobs, taking better paid jobs away from union members, and lowering the conditions for all."
As an example of another TWU campaign, Williams pointed to Brambles armoured car where the casual rates were $16/$18 an hour. "But now that they've been bought out by Chubb security they've tried to reduce the crew from three to two and they've employed people through labour hire companies. They've been trying to get rid of the casual TWU members and put in labour hire people at $10.95 an hour. I'd have to say that if we've got people prepared to work at $10.95 an hour then we'd have to say they're not suitable for such a job."
On the question of the Labor Party's promises to the trade union movement, Williams told Green Left "one of the problems is that Labor governments have a history of rolling some things back but not all of them. Whilst the industrial relations policy of the Labor Party may look good on paper it's a matter of them implementing the policy.
"They've said they'll get rid of the employment advocates, they'll get rid of many aspects of Reith's laws. We can only hope that they do. I think once the ALP does get into power the trade unions have got to get off their backsides and push the government into carrying out their promises."
Williams made the point that the union movement has "to get rid of this dog eat dog mentality and get rid of things like internal competitive tendering at the workplace".
"It's ridiculous", he said, "that you could be working at a place like Qantas for 20 years and then have to turn around and tender for your own job. In all my years I've never seen so much stress, family breakdowns, and suicides all put down to the fact that the bosses won't pay decent wages and conditions."