The union representing the country’s truck drivers says low wages are forcing some truck drivers to clock working weeks up to 70 hours long.
“Everyone is entitled to a wage they can live on and no one should have to work up to 70 hours a week to earn it, especially in the lead-up to Christmas,” said FIRST Union spokesperson Richie Morris.
Wellington-based Morris is representing striking truck drivers and store workers at The Car Distribution Group.
Approximately 50 truck drivers and store workers in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch are striking for 24 hours from Monday morning after the Car Distribution Group’s subsidiaries – Car Haulaways and Auckland Vehicle Deliveries – refused to offer pay parity between the two subsidiaries and lift wages to meet industry standards.
“Drivers and store workers at Car Haulaways aren’t only earning less than their colleagues from other companies they’re earning less than their mates at their sister company, Auckland Vehicle Deliveries, even though they’re delivering the same cars and driving the same trucks out of the same yards,” said Morris.
“It’s ridiculous.”
“Some drivers at Car Haulaways would have to work 50, 60, or 70 hour weeks to earn enough to support themselves and their families.”
“Our drivers and store workers aren’t asking for much. They don’t want the highest wages in the world, they want industry standard wages, and they want pay parity between the two sister companies,” Morris explained.
“Drivers at Car Haulaways and Auckland Vehicle Deliveries do the same job, driving the same trucks from the same yards, and delivering the same cars. Why shouldn’t they earn the same?”
“Everyone is entitled to a wage they can live on and no one should have to work up to 70 hours a week .” Too right.
They are not the only ones fed up (railway transport workers striking) and to make matters worse we have a bunch of dick head NZers calling these people greedy and ungrateful. Well housing costs in our country is the biggest burden on many in fact just getting a decent house to live in is a huge burden. Then there is food & electricity everything has gone up and people are expected to live on peanuts. Too many NZers don’t know what it is like and even when you do have a job and money many of us still have to deal with racism and discrimination when looking for somewhere to live.
Thanks First Union for this, as we respect and support all local truck deliveries, but refute the needs for “long haul road freight to and from our regions and here is why, and where National lost us all as on our East Coast when rail was closed down by national in 2012 lots of jobs and companies left our regions. We need to balance our rail/road freight.
I reside both in Gisborne and HB now with broken railway that now urgently needs fixing, to make our raods safe and bring comopanies and jobs back to us all.
Here I include this recent rail article (below) about the negative impacts to our community with the loss of our rail and highlighted the very heavy negative economic/social/health/ and environmental destruction that will occur if the likes of Ken Shirley and his trucking lobbyists along with National MPs suceed in keeping rail out of the freight bussiness.
While all we see is truck drivers complaining of “long hours and low paid jobs”!!!!!!
Rail will provide good permanent regional jobs for all local workers again as they had before rail was allowed to be run down for road freight to take the few jobs driving trucks.
Here is the Gisborne Herald press articles about our serious regional rail issues that must be included in restoration of rail in our regions, and this return of rail will reduce road freight negative impacts while improve the environment and the welllbeing and health of all our regional commmunities.
Please share this article.
Subject: http://gisborneherald.co.nz/opinion/3121947-135/about-sharing-the-load
gisborneherald.co.nz
About sharing the load
Published: December 9, 2017 11:44AM
LETTER
Re: It’s time to value Gisborne’s railway, December 2 column.
Thank you, Peter.
Here are some facts to help quantify the benefits.
An Ernst and Young report for the NZ Transport Agency in 2016 — The Value of Rail in New Zealand — put that value at $1.5 billion. The report was not made public until recently.
A B-train (truck with two trailers) wears out the road 20,000 times more than a car, and we know that the local roading authorities are struggling to keep up with the maintenance on the road. I travel the Gisborne to Napier route often and am fed up with the constant wheel alignments necessary from the potholes and sunken bridges.
Then there are the externalities — the consequences of an economic activity experienced by unrelated third parties: the social and environmental cost of increasing heavy trucks and reducing rail use.
The Ministry of Transport has put the social cost of each road death at $4.5 million, and a crash involving serious injuries at $473,600.
Living near a busy road increases the risk of premature death by 7 percent, increasing the risk of cancer, heart attack, stroke, dementia, childhood diabetes, asthma, allergies etc.
A diesel truck pollutes up to 1000 times more than a car.
One truck tyre sheds 10 times the amount of one car tyre.
Each truck tyre sheds 0.21 g/km of tyre compound (butadiene styrene); that is 5.46 g/km for a 26-wheel vehicle.
Road run-off accounts for 40-50 percent of urban metal contamination to aquatic ecosystems.
It’s not a matter of being anti trucks, it’s about sharing the load. Even the Road Transport Forum chief executive Ken Shirley, as well as local transport operators, are saying they can’t cope with the increasing freight task and may have to turn work away.
Janet Crispin.
Bob Hughes – 1 day ago
No contest
Rail as our main land transport method is the best long-term choice economically. It is also number one humanitarian, environmental, moral, and climate change choice as well.
Thank you Janet and Peter.
Delwyn Arthur – 20 hours ago
Good facts Janet – I wonder how many times they have to be repeated to be taken as seriously as they deserve.
December 11, 2017
gisborneherald.co.nz
http://gisborneherald.co.nz/opinion/3113574-135/its-time-to-value-gisbornes-railway
It’s time to value Gisborne’s railway
by Peter Wooding
Published: December 2, 2017 11:56AM
COLUMN
When debating the merits of restoring Gisborne’s connection to the rest of the New Zealand rail system, one is met with the argument that “it has always been uneconomic and always will be”.
This thinking has been promulgated so often it seems to have become ingrained in the public psyche. Even our District Council is shirking its responsibility for persuading central government to restore the resource we once had.
Surely there can be no argument that the railway was of benefit to the city. When it was available (before March 2012) it was used by local businesses because it was in their economic interest to do so. It was the government’s responsibility to provide the infrastructure, and the operator’s responsibility to provide the service.
Various recent efforts to compile a convincing business plan have been criticised for not including certain costs. The riposte is that the counter-argument does not include certain benefits.
Admittedly, some of these benefits are difficult to quantify.
Is this a case of knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing?
If Activate Tairawhiti was asked “What is the value to Gisborne of having a rail alternative to road transport (a) for established businesses, (b) in attracting new businesses, and (c) in establishing Gisborne as a desirable venue for tourism?” I suspect they would not know. Have they tried to put a value on it? Does this value appear anywhere on the district’s balance sheet?
I understand that the NZ Transport Agency has been tasked with developing an “Integrated Transport Policy” for this region. I also understand that, despite early sympathetic noises, they have stated that rail is “out of scope”.
How on earth can you have an integrated transport policy that does not include rail!?
The whole idea of integration is making best use of available resources. The 100km of railway line to Wairoa, running largely parallel to SH2 for most of the way, could be operational again for the sake of repairs to a few hundred metres of line in the Wharerata area. It may be that the cost of so doing would be rather more than the $5m touted; I accept that it could even be around the $20m mark one correspondent has claimed. But what is that in comparison with the billions spent on roading in other areas of the country?
On his recent visit to the area, Shane Jones said there is $1 billion going begging for regional development; all we have to do is ask. The case has been made over and over again — the true value will become evident when the line is again operational.
For goodness sake, cut through the continued railway approval procrastination/protraction (is an acronym necessary here?)
I urge Gisborne District Council, Activate Tairawhiti/ECT, Gisborne Chamber of Commerce and all other local agencies or individuals to put pressure on the new Government to give this matter their urgent attention. I urge the Minister of Transport, the Minister for Regional Development and the Minister for Tourism to delay no longer.
Just do it — you can make a difference!
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