Truckies demand higher rates

BY CHRIS SLEE

MELBOURNE — Victorian tip-truck owner-drivers are on strike for better cartage rates. They have forced the state's plant hire companies to agree to improved rates, but are still in dispute with quarry owners.

Most of the drivers are members of the Transport Workers Union and the strike is coordinated by the TWU's owner-drivers' committee. Decisions have been taken by mass meetings of drivers in Melbourne's docklands area.

Some drivers work for quarrying companies, including transnational corporations such as Boral and CSR, while others work in excavation, taking away material from building sites. Most of the excavation drivers have to go through plant hire agencies to get work on building sites. The agencies set the cartage rates and take 12.5 to 15% of the fee paid to drivers by the construction companies.

An October 10 agreement between the union and the plant hire companies agreed to new rates, which vary according to the type of material carried and other conditions, but which in some cases have been increased by 40%.

A mass meeting on October 11 voted to accept the agreement with the plant hire companies, but to remain on strike until the quarry drivers made similar gains.

The quarry owners have remained intransigent, prompting a week-long picket of quarries. The industrial relations commission has ordered the union to end the picket and told both parties to negotiate.

Several owner-drivers told Green Left Weekly that it has become impossible to earn a decent living in the industry, because cartage rates have not kept up with the rising price of fuel and other costs.

From GLW issue 425