Archive, Industry News

THE INTERSTATER: Subbies out of pocket

A Royal Commission into wage theft across the road transport industry? Bring it on!

 

It seems that the spectre of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal (RSRT) has raised its head again with everyone asking if it will be resurrected if Labor wins the next election. You all know my stance on the RSRT, but funnily enough, I won’t be supporting the re-introduction of the RSRT until the incoming government holds a Royal Commission into wage theft.

You see, the real problem with the road transport industry is wage theft. I wasn’t fully conscious of that fact until the penny dropped after the RSRT was shafted and we started to take stock of where we go from here. Wages, along with fuel, are the bedrock that forms a transport company’s bottom line because wages are the first port of call that a transport company can exploit its position in the marketplace.

How many of you have heard the boss say, “That’s all I can afford to pay you”, yet he drives around in a new $120,000 BMW? Or that he keeps working for shit rates or backload rates purely because he doesn’t have to worry about paying you and all the others exactly what you have earned? People working in the office are paid better money than the drivers yet do half the work and earn no income for the business. How is that even remotely fair or moral?

The road transport industry has had an unenviable reputation for ignoring, exploiting and outright manipulating their drivers’ wages and conditions to the point that today it has become acceptable practice in this industry to pay whatever you want to your drivers because no-one ever does anything about it.

We have unions, industrial courts and tribunals that are supposed to police the ruthless among us who would seek to rip off their hard working employees. Why has there been no outcry like there has been with 7Eleven, Caltex or Dominos? The transport industry spivs and con artists make them look like rank amateurs when it comes to exploiting transport workers. And so they should. They’ve had 50 years to hone their skills.

There is an obligation in this country that all businesses must abide by our rigorous Industrial Relations Laws and Fair Work Industrial Awards. This is non-negotiable and it is enforceable by way of court action or Fair Work intervention. But we still have the majority of employers saying that they simply can’t afford to pay you your legal entitlements. Really? What do they say to BP? We can’t afford to pay $1.60 for fuel; instead we will pay you $1.40? Of course not, they have to pay what is legally required at the pump along with their finance obligations, registration and all the other costs that go with running a proper business, including wages and entitlements.

How these companies can get away with this is unbelievable yet they and their industry associations keep the spin away from the truth.

It’s fantastic reading about how some of the largest, longest operating trucking companies have flourished and gone from strength to strength over the decades. But how many millions have they underpaid their drivers in that time?

The debate about driver recruitment has figured prominently lately. But before you can start a driver recruitment push you first have to make the transport industry an attractive workplace worthy of consideration. This is written as a conversation starter that needs to be had as soon as possible.

 

Low down

How many of you know why so many owner-drivers didn’t want ‘Safe Rates’? Firstly, let’s get one thing clear from the get go – Safe Rates is all about having a floor price, a bottom dollar amount that no-one can go below. So how can that be a bad thing? It’s called a Safe Rate because whenever anyone goes lower than that rate, there is no doubt that the freight cannot be transported safely. Without a Safe Rate, there have been no limits on just how low the rate can go.

Sorry to be so condescending, but if there is anyone out there that still hasn’t woken up to the fact that you were all conned by Turnbull, Cash and Joyce?

Owner-drivers think they don’t want a Safe Rate because they think the only way to secure a permanent or regular gig is to do it so cheap that no-one would dare try and match their price. And let’s be honest, an individual owner-driver’s price is what he or she values themselves at. So where does that leave you? Broke!

How can any half intelligent person be so against setting a sustainable rate, a more profitable rate, a Safe Rate, when they had no idea what that rate was going to be?

How about we take the company driver’s position on all of this as an example of the ill-informed stupidity in regard to making the sensible transition from the kilometre rate to an hourly rate? I’d like a dollar for every time I’ve heard the words, “I’d lose money if I went onto an hourly rate”. In fact, they don’t even know what the hourly rate would end up being.

It’s the same with the basic owner-driver. They didn’t hang around long enough for their Safe Rate to be calculated.

The other way of trying to hang onto low paying freight is to cart even more for less. But more freight doesn’t usually equate to more profit, only more turnover, only massive increases in equipment costs – and more headaches.

These people that are right in front of your eyes, everywhere, with bigger, longer gear are the reason freight rates aren’t increasing for you and your sufficient equipment that has served our industry well for the past 50-plus years. Let it be burnt into your brain: “It matters not how much you can cart, all that matters is how much you are being paid for what you are carting”.

We simply must have an inquiry into why there are so many deaths, bankruptcies, divorces, suicides, medical episodes, wage thefts, underpayments and late payments. Believe it, as you should or not if you are weak of mind, but Safe Rates April 4, 2016 would have well and truly set our industry up for a much better remuneration stronghold that we have seen since the alternative was allowed to continue unabated.

And to all those employee drivers out there, get yourself every cent you are entitled to and do the math. If you are being paid 48 cents per kilometre while the wheels are turning, you need at least $45 for every hour you are working, loading, fueling or washing the truck or just don’t do it. Give it to a local driver to do. They seem to be able to pay them.

Don’t forget, one cent extra per kilometre is only $10 more after each 1,000 kilometres, so two cents becomes $20, three cents equals $30 … and so on. Stop thinking a cent ends up being an extra hundred bucks. It’s not, and you are being robbed, ripped off and you are a victim of wage theft!

 

I scream!

We have to make an adjustment to last month’s column because, after having another crack at buying a 30 cent ice-cream in a cone at Ronny’s place, and even conceding they wanted 60 cents last time, we must duly inform you that they have now risen in price another 10 cents and are now 70 cents.

So, do you still think we can’t lift out freight rates, and demand an extra 10 cents per kilometre for driving a roadtrain?

Previous ArticleNext Article
Send this to a friend