As I sit here writing the column you are now reading, we’re at a time when our industry is pushed to deliver the excessive amount of freight that needs to be shifted in the lead up to the festive season.
Our drivers are putting up with the ‘Over Population Situation,’ most likely struggling to get a park as the caravans are pulled out of the shed for the annual test of wheel bearing resilience, and the tyre lottery that goes with it begins!
Most of us have suffered the frustration of not being able to get a park in our usual spots, and all the other ‘fun’ of sharing the road with non-professional drivers, but now on a mass scale.
But are we professional drivers? Well yes, by definition we drive for a profession – whether you spend six days a week in the truck, or like me now just fill in a few times a year to scratch the itch, and ‘keep my hand in’, we are paid to exercise our profession, so I say yes, we are by definition ‘Professional Drivers’.
While many of you reading this have been driving as long as some of us have been alive and were lucky enough to do your ‘apprenticeship’ from a young age, corporate Australia has now robbed our industry of this.
Unless you have turned up in fluro, long sleeved, long panted, correctly coloured hard hatted (yes, we have a board member that was not allowed to unload as he did not have a watermelon coloured hard hat) and are triply inducted into the micromanagement hall of shame, oh and of course without anyone else accompanying you, you may not load/unload the vehicle. The minor matter of if you can operate it or not is sadly irrelevant. Corporate Australia not only currently do not support proper training of our workforce, they actually rule it out completely.
Just as many of us received our licence either well after we became ‘professional’ (albeit unlicenced) drivers, or by the local sergeant of police knowing we were already driving and ‘shortened’ the process a bit, the training that led to this situation was generally very good – this unofficial ‘apprenticeship.’
But by the time this has gone to print, we will be at the dawn of a new year, and as 2025 looms, we are witnessing a much needed and overdue change. No, you still cannot take young Johnny or Jenny into the DC, let’s not get ahead of the game now!
What I am referring to is the implementation of an apprenticeship scheme that will nurture and educate the new entries to our industry as apprentices. It will allow them to learn all facets of the job that most people take for granted, such as just steering a vehicle from point A to point B. They will learn everything needed to perform as a ‘professional.’
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Just like a mechanic, builder or electrician who undergoes an apprenticeship and gains a level 3 trade certificate, so too our new apprenticed operators will end up with a trade certificate, a level 3 qualification no less.
In late December 2024, following much lobbying from various Industry representative groups, including the National Road Freighters Association, the ‘Heavy Vehicle Licencing and Employment Pathways working group’ has been formed to establish a process of change in the licencing of drivers and workers within the heavy vehicle industry.
To quote parts of a recent media release:
Recently, a group of transport association representatives met with Senator Glenn Sterle at Parliament House to establish a workforce action plan that will underwrite the implementation of a structured training regime and that will draw from existing models and deliver a higher quality of professional driver into the heavy vehicle road transport industry.
This meeting followed a highly successful Heavy Vehicle Road Transport Safety Round Table that was attended by 37 leading industry representatives from transport companies, company representatives from key supply chains, the union movement and transport and industry associations.
Recent studies have revealed that Australia has over 26,000 driver job vacancies in the road transport industry today. The current state and federal based licencing system circumvents the ability of the industry to attract and employ long term drivers who are skilled from day one.
The federal government has agreed to Skill’s Australia Workforce plan 2024.
We now call on the government to implement the recommendations for an apprenticeship scheme in the transport and logistics industry.
The heavy vehicle road transport industry needs skilled, trained and safe drivers who see the employment pathway as one that will ensure a growing career and obvious returns. The current systemic block is in the institutionalised licencing system that has not listened to the road freight industry.
Your NRFA is a part of that group
So where to now?
Well, the first thing is don’t go rubbishing this idea unless you have a better one and have successfully lobbied government to adapt it.
Next, call your local member and tell them you support anything that helps put our industry on the front foot and improves safety and our image. Remind them that if they want your vote next time around, they better support it too. Follow this up later. Have your family and friends do the same.
You could also contact your local high school and ask them if they know about it, and plan how we can get some of the young students interested in such a program and contact their member to push for their support. Get them to contact their local tech college and ask them if they know of it, and if not why. Follow up on this call.
Lastly, don’t be negative about this. Let’s really break this down. We are an industry of highly skilled professionals that carry out one of the toughest jobs in the world, away from home and family. We get ripped off as operators and drivers alike. On mass our value is not recognised – don’t even start me on how our holiday pay and super is paid by most companies.
This is finally some recognition that what we do requires lots of knowledge, skill and considerable time. It shows that we can both be recognised as educated professionals, and that any new or existing members will have the opportunity to be trained properly and also be recognised as professionals.
Let’s not forget the employers – they will be given incentives to offset the financial burden they currently heft themselves with when supplying a wage and equipment to train someone who may have very little skill to begin with.
Also, if we lift the industry skills medium, we as professionals will attract not only a better quality of operator, but the financial rewards that go with it.
As we start a new year I set you a challenge: put the talk into action and get behind the industry we all say we love. Support these changes and the associations that fight for them.
Every time you go to whinge about something in our industry, stop yourself and do something positive to make it a better industry.
Finally, I wish everyone the best for 2025, keep it shiny side up, look after your health, family, friends and the rig you are making a living in.
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