PART A - CASE STUDY

Truck driver strike at Toll Group set to cause road block, with Linfox also facing industrial action

Thousands of truck drivers will stop deliveries on Friday as part of a planned national strike at transport giant Toll Group, and transport workers at LinFox and Bevchain also look set to take industrial action.

Key points:

• Around 7,000 Toll truck drivers will go on strike for 24 hours on Friday
• The Transport Workers Union is accusing Toll of seeking to hire lower-paid contractors
• 2000 workers at Linfox and Bevchain will also apply to the Fair Work Commission to take industrial action

The Transport Workers Union (TWU) said "crisis talks" over a new enterprise bargaining agreement with Toll collapsed yesterday. As a result, it said, 7,000 truck drivers would strike for 24 hours on Friday. The strike means there will be disruptions across a wide range of industries, including retail and beverage. Toll is one of the nation's biggest transport operators.

The TWU wants Toll to provide workers with job security and to abandon plans to hire lower paid contractors and labour hire drivers.

Workers are also seeking annual pay increases of 3 per cent, but Toll is offering a 2 per cent wage rise. Ninety-four per cent of Toll workers voted to take protected industrial action, which has been approved by the Fair Work Commission.

However, a war of words has broken out between the TWU and Toll over the planned strike.

TWU national secretary Michael Kaine: "Toll workers have been forced to take the last resort option to go on strike this week because their jobs are being smashed."

Toll said the strike could disrupt deliveries of medical supplies like COVID-19 vaccines, but the TWU said medicines would be exempt from the industrial action.

TWU NSW lead negotiator said Toll's management had made no effort to prevent strikes and refused to provide workers with secure jobs.

Toll moves freight across 50 countries, to 1,200 locations and employs 40,000 people globally.

Mr Kaine said big firms such as Amazon and Apple had seen profits boom during the economic rebound from the coronavirus pandemic. But he said major retailers were squeezing transport companies, who were responding by cutting wages or outsourcing work.

"It is no coincidence that workers across several major transport companies are facing the same attacks," he said.

Short Answer questions You must answer BOTH questions. Write 300 (minimum requirement) to 500 words (maximum limit) in total to answer Part A.

Each question is worth five (5) marks.

A1. Who are the three main stakeholders in the case study, and what are their key claims?