PROTESTING TRANSPORT WORKERS DEMAND SAFETY AND FAIRNESS FROM ALDI

Over 100 hundred transport workers and supporters will today kick off an ongoing safety campaign with a protest at Aldi South Fremantle. Truckies are serving a claim on Aldi to become a responsible transport employer and a responsible transport client.

Aldi directly employs some truck drivers, but doesn’t have a transport enterprise agreement to provide appropriate pay, conditions and safety protections.

The rest of Aldi’s transport work is contracted out to operators, but unlike Coles and Woolworths, Aldi has refused to negotiate a supply chain safety charter with the TWU to ensure all transport workers it engages have safe, fair working conditions.

Safety breaches have been raised at Aldi stores, both by workers across the country and through inspections from the NSW safety regulator. These include:

• Crush injury risks
• Fall from height risks
• Poor traffic management
• Inadequate training on loading and unloading of heavy vehicles
• Fire hazards
• Faulty equipment
• Pressure to work long hours and meet tight deadlines
• Fear of being targeted for being a union member

The claim on Aldi calls for:

1. A national road transport enterprise agreement for employees;
2. A supply chain safety charter for contracted-out transport work;
3. A voice for workers; and
4. To join with industry to lift standards in transport.

In August, new laws come into effect to empower the Fair Work Commission to set standards in transport. The TWU has vowed to use the legislation to hold Aldi to account if the supermarket outlier refuses to work with transport workers on safety and fairness.

Aldi has previously unsuccessfully attempted to silence truckies on safety in court.

TWU National Secretary Michael Kaine said:

“Now is not the time for Aldi to bury its head in the sand and ignore its responsibility for safety in transport – Australia’s deadliest industry. The whole of the transport industry including clients Coles and Woolworths, transport employers, owner driver associations and transport workers have come together to call for a safer, fairer and more sustainable industry. Federal Parliament responded by passing lifesaving reform. But Aldi was nowhere to be seen.

“Aldi is the supermarket outlier, and a transport operator outlier – refusing to accept responsibility for its role in deadly pressures in transport. Today and over the coming months, we’re giving Aldi one more chance to work with us. If Aldi continues to refuse, we won’t hesitate to use legislative powers to hold them to account.”

The SDA recently won a wage theft case against Aldi for unpaid work at the start and end of shifts. The union has also raised concerns that labour hire clauses in an agreement it is trying to push through in Victoria contradict new Same Job, Same Pay laws.

SDA WA State Secretary Ben Harris said:

“Aldi has been found to have breached the Fair Work Act by making workers work for free. Now they’re trying to skirt new laws to pay people less to do the same jobs. This is not a company interested in listening to workers, or treating them with respect. The SDA stands with transport workers in this fight and calls on Aldi to take safety seriously. We all share the roads, and we all deserve to come home safely at the end of the day.”

NOTES

• TWU members have called Aldi to the table for years. After two failed court attempts to silence truckies, Aldi agreed to meet but was not prepared to participate in genuine consultation on a safety charter. The talks broke down as a result.
• Aldi says it doesn’t need to talk to workers about a supply chain charter because it has one of its own. Self-regulation doesn’t work in transport – Australia’s deadliest industry. Coles and Woolworths have developed safety charters in partnership with workers, but Aldi refuses to do the same.