In February we won new laws in road transport that TWU members have been campaigning to get for over two decades.
Those laws will be a powerful tool in our arsenal to start reshaping road transport. We wasted no time using them, putting in applications in August when the laws took effect to begin critical reforms.
One, for minimum standards in food delivery, where workers have been exploited for far too long. That will also help ensure the rest of the industry doesn’t get dragged down.
Two, for minimum standards in parcel delivery, where work is exploding but companies like Amazon are using models which undercut other decent operators.
And three, an application for across all of road transport to ensure drivers and operators are paid within a maximum of 30 days.
What we’ve achieved here is having ripple effects across the globe.
The approach we’ve taken at the TWU is now informing how other countries are reforming their transport industries—and not just road transport but across aviation as well.
Aviation and road transport are obviously incredibly different industries. They’ve got their own set of unique challenges. But the issues in both come back to wealthy clients (like Aldi and Amazon in road transport, and Qantas in aviation) and their greed, dragging down pay and conditions for workers.
We’re tackling this step by step at the TWU, and it’s been a huge year in aviation as well.
We’ve seen Virgin pilots follow ground crew and cabin crew in settling agreements that go a long way in resetting conditions. We’ve launched Same Job Same Pay applications in Jetstar cabin crew and Qantas Freight.
Ground workers at dnata and Menzies are fighting for better agreements, as well as catering and security workers, and we’ve brought back airport committees to develop our strategy for bringing up pay and conditions in aviation—for all workers.
And we had a huge win in the Federal Court, with Justice Lee ordering compensation for 1700 illegally sacked Qantas workers— all up it could be over a $100 million bill for the company.
2025 will be a huge year, ahead of over 200 agreements expiring in 2026, when we join across road transport and aviation for the first time to hold wealthy clients to account and lift standards across the industry.
In what is often the busiest time of year for many transport workers, I hope you get some time with friends and family, and I look forward to what we’ll accomplish together in 2025.
National Secretary, Michael Kaine