Union push to improve delivery riders’ pay and conditions after five deaths in two months
Australian unions will push for delivery riders’ pay and conditions to be set by the industrial tribunal to tackle a spate of five deaths in two months.
On Wednesday the Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary, Sally McManus, outlined the plan at the National Press Club, as the industrial relations minister Christian Porter accepted “there clearly is an issue” with the safety of the gig economy workers.
Porter revealed in question time he had discussed the problem with the Transport Workers Union national secretary Michael Kaine, who told Guardian Australia the union representing riders and drivers will continue to push for a national solution.
In Australia, food delivery riders are classified as independent contractors, responsible for maintaining their own equipment and incentivised to rush orders to achieve rates that amount to less than the minimum wages of $19.84 an hour.
Five food delivery riders have died in road accidents in the past two months. Many were recent migrants or visa-holders who had come to Australia in search of a better life.
McManus said the “shameful tragedy” shows gig economy workers had been “abandoned” by the government, tech giants and inadequate workplace laws.
Asked what solution unions will pursue, McManus said the movement did not want to go down the route attempted by California to reclassify the workers as employees, arguing gig economy companies will attempt to sidestep the laws with small tweaks in their practices.
“We think we have got to get away from talking about employees or not and talk about workers,” she said.
McManus said the “best way” to tackle the issue “is to empower someone like the Fair Work Commission to deem a group of workers [such as] delivery riders, as getting the rights of the Fair Work Act”. That would include the minimum wage, the ability to collectively bargain, and access to paid leave, she said.
Labor’s shadow industrial minister, Tony Burke, last week flagged Labor support for that proposal, describing it as “one option” that could be adopted easily to improve conditions in the gig economy.
By allowing the commission to regulate workers that are “employee-like”, the government could prevent workers “being exploited and receiving less than minimum rates”, he told the Australian Road Transport Industrial Organisation on Friday.
In question time, Labor MP Josh Burns asked about Chow Khai Shien, who he said “dreamed of owning a restaurant and working as a chef”, but died while delivering food in Melbourne October.
Porter replied he had a “very productive and informative meeting” with Kaine discussing the issue, but occupational health and safety for the drivers “is essentially a state-based responsibility”.
“But there’s no doubt that there are issues to be addressed here as the gig economy gets well and truly indentured into the area of deliveries and food deliveries,” he said.
Porter added that he had “deepest sympathies” for the families of drivers who had accidents.
Porter said there was “no doubt that there is a leadership role for the commonwealth to play” and he committed to raise the issue at the ministerial council with states and territories.
The federal agency, Safe Work Australia, will also investigate “exactly how those laws are not operating in the most efficient way with respect to those drivers”, he said.
Kaine told Guardian Australia it was “a good thing” that Porter had acknowledged the problem, describing it as “progress”.
Although the TWU will also pursue legal change at the state level, Kaine rejected the claim it is solely a state responsibility.
“It’s a federal responsibility – this is a federal government of the same political hue as the one that grabbed responsibility for workplace laws with their WorkChoices legislation, and the same is true of the Independent Contractors Act,” he said.
“They have captured work – so they have to deal with the gaps … They can’t just push it off to the states.”
Kaine argued that work health and safety laws don’t address the underlying pressures including “incredibly low rates of pay”.
Under the TWU proposal, the Fair Work Commission would consider whether classes of worker, like food delivery riders, were “highly dependent” on tech companies for work, and award them higher pay and conditions.
In 2012 the TWU persuaded the Gillard Labor government to create a road safety remuneration tribunal to set the pay and conditions of truck owner-drivers in a bid to improve safety.
The Turnbull government abolished the body in 2016, arguing it disadvantaged independent contractors bidding for work and competing on price against large trucking companies.