
Issue No 31		17 September 1999

News

Reith Forces Truckies to Speed

Truck drivers are being forced to sign individual contracts that requires them to drive 15 km per hour faster than under the award system, raising concerns about road safety.

The Transport Workers Union says the Employment Advocate is approving Australia Workplace Agreements that base rates on truck drivers travelling at 90 km per hour, up from 75 km hour under the Award.

"These new speeds are unachievable," TWU state secretary Tony Sheldon says. "It's impossible to sustain a speed of 90 kms per hour on out road networks."

"To maintain their livelihood a driver has little choice but to speed or stay behind the wheel longer."

Details of the AWAs are included in the TWU's submission to the Senate Inquiry into the Workplace Relations Act.

In the submission, the TWU says it is not uncommon for long distance truck drivers to work in excess of eighty hours a week, in some cases up to 100 hours behind the wheel.

Sheldon says its no coincidence that there's been a five per cent increase in the number of fatalities involving articulated trucks in 1998.

"This is clearly a failure of the Australian industrial relations system," Sheldon says. "Agreements are being allowed to pass the No Disadvantage Test despite drivers being forced to put their lives and the lives of all other road users at an unacceptable risk.

"How can it be in the interest of drivers or the general public for drivers to be on the road longer, drive faster and become increasingly fatigued?"

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Issue 31 contents

Interview: Sadly Vindicated
Labor�s foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton has spent the past year warning that East Timor would explode without a UN peacekeeping force. Now he�s had to watch his predictions come true.

International: In the Bunker
One of the last reporters to leave East Timor, Workers Online's HT Lee remembers the week that Dili burned.

Republic: Tarred With the Same Brush
Neville Wran asks why it is that the most fervant monarchists are also the most eager union-bashers.

Unions: Hard Labour
Prisoner educators argue more attention needs to be given to rehabilitation through teaching, but they�re facing an uphill battle to convince authorities.

History: Labour and Community
A history conference in Wollongong next month will look at the changing role for labour into the next century.

Review: Bobbin' Up - 40 Years On
Forty years after its first publicaton and several European translations Bobbin Up, a classic of industrial fiction, is coming home.

Satire: East Timor Poll Triumph: Support for Jakarta Up 21 Per Cent
The Indonesian Government has declared that it is pleased with the result of the independence referendum in which 21% of East Timorese voted in support of maintaining links with Indonesia.

» Asylum Call for Independence Supporters

» Nurses Collect Vital Medical Supplies

» Industrial Faction for Pre-Conference Caucus

» Lees Backs Freeloader Laws

» Outsourcing Decision - Banks Under the Gun

» Reith Forces Truckies to Speed

» He Talks the Talk - But Can He Walk the Walk?

» Commission Tells AGC to Get Into the Nineties

» Cost-Cutting Puts Clinical Waste in Landfill

» Prisons Reject Free Computers

» US Defence Giant Eyes Welfare Sector