Truck Moves Australia is continuing to lead the charge to ensure truck relocation drivers around Australia receive a fair wage.
The truck relocation industry was brought under the Road Transport & Distribution Award back on July 1, 2018, meaning truck movers are explicitly covered by the award as determined by the Fair Work Commission’s ruling.
At the time, the Transport Workers’ Union (TWU) pushed for an extra paragraph to include truck movers. The paragraph reads as follows: ‘3.1 (j) the distribution and/or relocation by road of new or used vehicles as described in the classifications within this award where the vehicle itself is required to be driven from one location to another for the purposes of delivery and/or relocation of the vehicle’.
In the nearly eight years since, Truck Moves Australia managing director Matt Whitnall says the company continues to hear and see drivers in the industry who aren’t receiving fair pay.
“We have seen evidence, provided by dozens of drivers in the industry, that some dodgy operators have used the TWU and FWC ruling as a stooge – increasing prices to customers while at the same time ignoring the award, making up their own rates or deliberately adopting an incorrect award that pays lower rates and provides no pay for return travel time (which can be up to half a day),” Whitnall says.
“Their customers are effectively paying rates based on the correct award and these guys are ripping off their workers and pocketing the difference.
“The hard working drivers, predominately older, are crying out for help and keep calling and emailing us with more and more solid physical evidence, as they remain underpaid, ignored or ghosted by these employers when asking about being paid correctly.
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“We know exactly who these people are because their drivers apply for jobs with us and show us their payslips.”
In the years since Truck Moves Australia recognised this inequity, the brand pushed for change, chatting to the TWU and Fair Work Ombudsman without any substantial reforms.
“So much could be done so easily but they are too bureaucratic,” Whitnall says.
“The simple way to find wage theft companies is finding drivers without payslips, coordinate with the NHVR to check pay when they find someone breaking fatigue laws constantly and ask companies doing the right thing to help.”
On top of this, Truck Moves Australia created Truck Relocation Industry.org as a founding member for drivers who need help on what legal pay should be or for those looking to make a claim. Whitnall says “a stack of drivers” have since reached out and provided hard evidence of “systematic wage theft”.
He says drivers showed documented facts including not being paid legal entitlements of overtime after 7.6 NT hours, Saturday/Sunday penalty rates, nightshift allowances or return travel time paid hourly when transiting or flying.
“All of these pay rates and allowances have been legally entrenched for the past seven or more years, which means there is a huge backpay claim that can be made by drivers if only they knew how easy it was to do it,” Whitnall says.
“That’s why we created the simple resource of Truck Relocation Industry.org where they can see for themselves what they should get paid, including overtime and double time.
“The only explanation for any operator not following the correct award to compensate their drivers is greed, pure and simple. If you are one of the unlucky drivers who work for these rip-off merchants, reach out to your local union representative, the Fair Work Ombudsman or contact me directly and confidentially.
“We are happy to help exploited drivers make their case to be fairly compensated and level the playing field for safe and legal operators in the industry.”
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