TWU MEDIA RELEASE, 17 September 2015
Transport employees will be forced into poverty if the Productivity Commission’s draft report is implemented, the TWU has warned as hearings convened today in Sydney on the report.
The report will see the voice of workforces in aviation and road transport weakened and their pay and conditions reduced.
TWU National Secretary Tony Sheldon said the recommendations would devastate working families and the economy. “If we want a strong economy then we need quality, full-time, permanent jobs to fuel it. This report will instead give us an Australia divided between the wealthy elites squeezing from the top and employees struggling at the bottom. But this kind of inequality will serve no one in the long run,” he said.
Plans to reduce penalty rates for some employees is unacceptable and would undoubtedly be broadened to include all workers. Bus driver Dave Pola said ahead of the hearing: “Penalty rates are not an added extra for me and my family: If I don't get my weekend penalty rates I won't be able to pay the rent on my house."
The proposal for an “enterprise contract” would destroy pay and conditions as it would allow the vital transport awards to be bypassed. It would undermine the security of employment as employers could hire new employees on a take-it-or-leave-it basis just as AWAs were used against new employees under WorkChoices.
“In road transport this will inevitably result in drivers being sweated to work longer hours on lower pay with inevitable tragic results in death toll on our roads. In aviation workers are already earning low wages with 21% earning below the poverty line. These changes will lower standards and impoverish families,” said Sheldon.
Transport employees will be forced into poverty if the Productivity Commission’s draft report is implemented, the TWU has warned as hearings convened today in Sydney on the report.
The report will see the voice of workforces in aviation and road transport weakened and their pay and conditions reduced.
TWU National Secretary Tony Sheldon said the recommendations would devastate working families and the economy. “If we want a strong economy then we need quality, full-time, permanent jobs to fuel it. This report will instead give us an Australia divided between the wealthy elites squeezing from the top and employees struggling at the bottom. But this kind of inequality will serve no one in the long run,” he said.
Plans to reduce penalty rates for some employees is unacceptable and would undoubtedly be broadened to include all workers. Bus driver Dave Pola said ahead of the hearing: “Penalty rates are not an added extra for me and my family: If I don't get my weekend penalty rates I won't be able to pay the rent on my house."
The proposal for an “enterprise contract” would destroy pay and conditions as it would allow the vital transport awards to be bypassed. It would undermine the security of employment as employers could hire new employees on a take-it-or-leave-it basis just as AWAs were used against new employees under WorkChoices.
“In road transport this will inevitably result in drivers being sweated to work longer hours on lower pay with inevitable tragic results in death toll on our roads. In aviation workers are already earning low wages with 21% earning below the poverty line. These changes will lower standards and impoverish families,” said Sheldon.
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