Transport Workers Kept Us Healthy During the Pandemic
Dan Kelly
28/08/2021
As I was driving home listening to the radio on Friday the 27th of August, I heard that sadly two fatigued truck drivers had lost their lives in a crash. It is because of these dangerous conditions and the lack of respect shown to workers that, on the very same day, 7000 truck drivers from Toll began a 24-hour strike for better pay and safer working conditions.
Why Strike Now?
Although trucking is one of the deadliest jobs in Australia, Toll and other transport companies seem content to put truck driver’s lives at risk through unsafe working conditions for the sake of profit—as demonstrated this morning when the 2 aforementioned truckers lost their lives in Port Macquarie due to fatigue. Despite this, the government attacked and dismantled an independent tribunal into the worsening conditions and deaths caused by the exploitative actions of companies such as Toll—showing their utter disregard for the lives of truck drivers. The two lives lost this morning brings the total number of dead truck drivers in the five years since then to 207. Two hundred and seven workers lost due to the relentless pursuit of profit.
The callousness of businesses and the government in attempting to undermine safe working conditions is shameful. These workers have carried Australia through the pandemic, working long hours and putting their health at risk. Truckers have run themselves ragged to keep our communities and country afloat, and what do they receive in return? Poor pay and dangerous working conditions that can cost them their lives. This is why truck drivers voted to go on strike while their representatives in the Transport Workers’ Union renegotiate the appallingly unsafe conditions in their Enterprise Agreement. Workers are also demanding an end to attacks on vital overtime pay and full-time jobs as a result of outside hires.
Wider Significance
The issues involved in this strike are significant for our community and the working class. Corporations have made massive profits during the pandemic due to the sacrifices of workers—and yet they are still cutting away at workers’ rights and conditions to make even more money. For example, Toll’s annual revenue increased by nearly a third to $6.3 billion for 2021. Likewise, Amazon profits grew massively with a 224% increase in profit to $11 billion in the first quarter of 2021. Yet, they continue to undercut transport workers by contracting their own drivers through AmazonFlex to serve their empire of exploitation, where drivers are subject to terrible conditions that see them underpaid and overexploited with severe timeframes that are unsafe and unrealistic. Similarly, we saw Qantas cut some 6000 jobs after pocketing $715 million in government handouts last year. Thus, the Toll strike represents something much bigger than the terrible conditions truckers are subject to. It represents a fight back against the trends of casualisation and monopolisation that mega-corporations are forcing upon vital transport workers that have carried us through this pandemic. It is our duty as principled Marxist-Leninists to support the truck drivers—and transport workers more broadly—in their struggle against this.
The Importance of a Militant Rank-and-File
This strike went ahead because an 94% of the work force voted to go on strike. Unfortunately, the union leadership is set to sabotage this rank-and-file militancy as they are expected to accept a meagre 3% pay rise. If the union settles for a pay rise lower than the 4% annual increase in the cost of living how can they expect member confidence to rise? How are the rank-and-file to be mobilised to greater action when they see it achieves so little and costs them so much? For workers to be successful, we need union bureaucrats to stop signing off on weak enterprise agreements which they force the memberships into.
We can only hope that the rank-and-file members remain staunch in their militancy. It is up to the membership to twist the arm of the union leadership and to make them understand that it is the wellbeing of the workers that must come first. Not profit, not business. It is the truckers that keep this country moving and it is the rank-and-file that will keep the truckers from losing. As communists, as workers, and as decent human beings, we pledge our solidarity and support to the striking truckers at Toll. May they win the improved conditions they so rightly deserve. May these one day extend to other transport workers at StarTrack, FedEx and Linfox who are subject to similar degrading conditions despite their important work.
All power to the truckers. I’m not one for hashtags, but I am when workers fight exploitation. #TruckieSolidarity
How to support the striking truckers:
Sign the petition:
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/truckie-solidarity
And share it on social media with the support #TruckieSolidarity
If you work in the industry, join the union to protect your rights: https://www.twu.com.au/join/
Join the wider class struggle to empower workers, communities and unions through the rank-and-file movement by getting involved with the Australian Communist Party:
https://www.auscp.org.au/joinacp
References:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-27/two-dead-in-pacific-highway-truck-crash/100412052