TWU JOINS UNIONS IN OPPOSITION TO ANTI-WORKER ‘ENSURING INTEGRITY BILL’ AT TODAY’S SENATE INQUIRY HEARING

The Transport Workers’ Union will today tell the Senate Inquiry hearing on the Ensuring Integrity Bill that the transport industry is the deadliest in Australia, and workers need legislation to back them up when their safety and the safety of the public is at risk.

TWU National Assistant Secretary Nick McIntosh will tell the Education and Employment Legislation Committee at Mascot Ballroom in Sydney that the transport industry is marked by high instances of death, injury, wage theft, non-payment of superannuation, low pay and lack of minimum standards.

The proposed Ensuring Integrity Bill, which would make it more difficult for workers to take action, would award wealthy companies the right to make profits at the expense of safety.

“The transport industry is crying out for regulation to prevent wealthy companies at the top of supply chains from putting a deadly squeeze on transport, but this Bill aims to strip workers of the few legislative powers they have to fight back. When profit is prioritised over safety, the worst often happens. Whether a fatal truck crash, a violent attack on a bus driver and their passengers, or an armed robbery of a cash-in-transit van, these terrifying ordeals threaten both workers just trying to do their job and the public who may be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Rather than fighting off a fresh attack on unions, workers should be given the protections they need to do their jobs safely,” said TWU National Assistant Secretary Nick McIntosh.

Also appearing at the hearing is cash-in-transit driver Charles McKay who will bravely remind the Committee of incidents that required him and his workmates to take unprotected action after workers had been killed.

One example is delivery guard Gary Allibon, who was shot dead in 2010 during a robbery at an ATM on Sussex Street in Sydney. Work stoppage meetings took place following these incidents to flag safety concerns and to allow workers, employers and police to co-ordinate responses.

“When a worker is tragically killed in our line of work, it is not just a one-off case of terrible luck. Armed robberies are calculated attacks that purposefully threaten our lives. If a worker is killed, the perpetrators are on the loose, and we do not feel that the company is doing enough to protect us, how can we be denied the human right to remove ourselves from that danger? Doing so should never put us at risk of losing our job or our representative body at risk of being deregistered,” McKay said.

Supermarket giant Aldi began an unprecedented Federal Court case in 2017 against the TWU after it failed to get an injunction stopping the union from speaking out about truck driver rates and safety in its supply chain. The case demonstrates that companies are already willing to take lengthy and costly cases to test laws in order to silence workers and trade unions.

Click here for the TWU submission to the inquiry.