Exploited food delivery riders and AmazonFlex parcel couriers will today exercise new rights to apply for enforceable standards for gig workers under the Fair Work Commission's new road transport division.
The first-ever applications include a safety net on pay to ensure workers can recover their costs, earn a living wage, and be compensated for the intermittent, uncertain nature of their work. Other entitlements in the applications include company-funded superannuation and safety training, as well as consultation and representation rights.
This week, ground-breaking new laws have taken effect with a dedicated Expert Panel of the Fair Work Commission tasked with setting standards to make road transport "safe, sustainable and viable."
Gig workers and owner-driver couriers and truckies now have access to the Fair Work Commission for the first time.
A further application from truck drivers under this week's new laws will call for fair payment terms in transport supply chains, preventing wealthy retailers, manufacturers and oil companies from passing financial risk onto operators and owner drivers on razor-thin margins.
The TWU's applications attack the Amazon Effect that has seen transport supply chains squeezed by wealthy retailers at the top, while unregulated gig competition has ripped away standards from the bottom.
Decades of evidence has shown the link between low pay and poor safety outcomes in Australia's deadliest industry.
Over the past 10 years,1,785 people have been killed in truck crashes and 486 transport workers have died on the job, including 19 transport gig workers. During the same decade, ASIC recorded 3,577 transport business insolvencies, costing thousands upon thousands of jobs.
Click here for the content of the applications.
TWU National Secretary Michael Kaine said:
"With these applications, we are redesigning the deadly transport industry, and not a day too soon. Gig workers have been killed, maimed and exploited with no access to rights and protections until now. In the broader transport industry, almost 500 workers have died and more than 3,500 businesses have collapsed over the last decade alone.
"Making these applications during the first week of this ground-breaking legislation is a watershed moment for Australia's 500,000+ transport workers, their families and the entire community.
"No household is untouched by the efforts of transport workers. We share the roads with trucks, courier vans and food delivery bikes every day. With the boom of online retail and food delivery, consumers have come to expect rapid deliveries to our doors, but also expect that drivers are paid properly and work under safe conditions. From today, at last, that reality is coming into focus.
"Over time, these standards can be built up and expanded out until we have eradicated the Amazon Effect that has brought deadly exploitation and unsustainable competition to the transport industry."
Notes
Under the new legislation, the applications will be referred to a Road Transport Advisory Group (RTAG) of registered organisations, which will coordinate subcommittee consultation with relevant parties in order to inform the Expert Panel on standards.
This week, a delegation of international transport unions coordinated by the International Transport Workers Federation are in Sydney to commemorate the launch of these new laws and its first applications. Last year, 67 transport unions around the world signed up to a global campaign to secure similar legislative systems to protect transport workers.
