The Transport Workers’ Union (TWU) has welcomed new legislation introduced in New South Wales that will further close loopholes that exploit smaller transport businesses and gig workers.
The updates to NSW’s Industrial Relations Act is set to ease supply chain pressures by filling in gaps for matters such as worker compensation and workplace health and safety.
The new law works in conjunction with the federal government’s Closing Loopholes laws passed last year that ensure that owner drivers and transport small businesses don’t fall victim to supply chain pressures.
Since 2017, TWU NSW state assistant secretary Nick McIntosh says 18 food delivery riders have been killed on Australian roads, with 15 being in Sydney, making these new laws important for all parts of the transport industry.
“The changes coming to Parliament this week are common-sense reforms that give owner drivers, transport small businesses and gig workers much-needed protections after years of exploitation and immense contract pressures,” he says.
“These reforms will be a sigh of relief to workers and transport businesses, easing deadly supply chain pressure and saving lives on NSW roads.”
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“Gig companies should support these updates as well as engage in the gig applications underway in the Fair Work Commission to save lives through decent standards for workers.”
TWU national secretary Michael Kaine says transport small businesses and owner drivers under supply chain pressures can now have minimum standards in the state.
“All legislative protections that provide rights to workers, a fair playing field for employers and better safeguards for the community are to be welcomed, and these are ones that will save lives,” he says.
“For years, gig companies have exploited every loophole in countries around the world to wriggle out of ensuring decent standards for workers. The federal and NSW state oppositions not only refused to act, they rolled out the red carpet to this unconscionable behaviour.
“For too long, workers have been killed on our roads and transport businesses have struggled to survive under immense supply chain pressure. This action by the NSW government is a step towards a more level playing field, complementing federal legislation that is well on its way to putting in place life-saving standards in road transport.
“These updates to NSW law are crucial to ensure workers don’t fall through the cracks in matters that fall to the states, and to balance the rideshare and taxi industries fairly and rationally.”
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