http://themilitant.com/2016/8021/802153.html
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Vol. 80/No. 21 May 30, 2016
(commentary)
Australia truck drivers discuss fight for safety, unions
BY LINDA HARRIS
AND MANUELE LASALO
SYDNEY — Recent counterposed actions by unionized fleet truck drivers
and independent owner-drivers highlight the way the capitalist rulers
try to pit working people against each other. They pose the challenge to
the labor movement to win owner-drivers to the union and to rely on our
own power and mobilization — not regulation by the bosses’ government —
to unite and fight for better conditions.
Some 200 members of the Transport Workers Union blocked traffic here
April 28, calling for the reinstatement of the Road Safety Remuneration
Tribunal.
The Liberal-National coalition government of Prime Minister Malcolm
Turnbull abolished the tribunal April 18, the day after hundreds of
owner-drivers from across the country demonstrated outside federal
parliament in Canberra. They were protesting a tribunal order mandating
minimum rates to be charged by some 35,000 owner-drivers, which took
effect April 7.
The tribunal was set up in 2012 by the Labor government with the backing
of union officials, to “regulate on safety” in the trucking industry.
Transport Workers national secretary Tony Sheldon had argued that the
higher rates would improve safety by addressing “pressure drivers are
under to speed, drive long hours, skip mandatory rest breaks and skip
maintenance on their vehicles.”
Owner-drivers at the Canberra protest saw the mandate not as a measure
to advance safety, but as something that would price them out of
business. “Safety is paramount for us,” Alina Hawkins told the Militant.
She has driven cattle trucks in rural New South Wales for 10 years.
Many said they are already over-regulated. Some drivers, especially
those who carry bulk loads from farms, often don’t have a full load on
the return trip. The tribunal order forced them to charge full rates
both ways, leaving some stranded while awaiting full loads.
Dave West, a Transport Workers driver who took part in the union
protest, told the Militant he thinks truck drivers need the tribunal to
regulate safety, but acknowledged its ruling had hit some owner-drivers
hard. “The way forward,” West said, is for workers “in all different
parts of the industry to come together.”
That gets at the heart of the challenge. Big freight companies and
supermarket chains dictate conditions for thousands of drivers, cutting
corners on maintenance and pressing them to cut delivery times. They use
competition among workers and the attitude of many union officials — who
view independent owner-drivers as the problem, not as fellow workers —
to divide truckers and drive down conditions for all workers.
There are different economic layers among owner-drivers. Many are
workers who own or are paying off one truck. Others have expanded to
manage a small fleet. Capitalists foster illusions that the dream of
“becoming your own boss” is open to everyone, so as to trick
owner-drivers into identifying with management rather than fellow drivers.
An example of how class-conscious workers drew drivers owning their own
trucks into an alliance with fleet drivers was set in the 1930s by the
leadership of the Minnesota Teamsters. In Teamster Politics, Farrell
Dobbs, one of the union leaders, describes how they were convinced that
“those owning one truck, who did their own driving, should be approached
by the union as fellow workers.” So they set out to organize as many of
them as possible. Then “the union as a whole followed through by backing
them in [their] struggles.” Dobbs concludes that this course “checkmated
the divisive schemes of the bosses.”
Related articles:
A month into strike, Verizon workers reach for solidarity
Indiana aerospace workers reject cuts, fight lockout at Honeywell
On the Picket Line
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