If I find fault with trade unions and here I do it is in the failure to inform both its members and the world about the vast number of unions that actively work for the boss and actively against the workers.
Just this day I found this highlighted by a firm working under an agreement drawn up by a NSW builders group who actively do so on behalf of members and in fact for a fee anyone who will pay.
This grubby document refers to 8 tonne truck drivers mostly working on NSW Government work sites.
Casual rates are $18.65 per hour ALL HOURS WORKED NO PENALTY RATES.
HOURS WORKED DO NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL TO AND FROM WORK taking the truck to work is travel time!
The agreement is for a FIVE YEAR TERM!
NO WAGE INCREASES IN THAT TIME! NONE!
no overtime but many ten or twelve hour days!
The trade union movement seems to think you know this, has some information on some union web pages but is blissfully unaware most workers do not visit such pages.
Once you do they mostly are not printer friendly and only those who visit know the full picture.
Bosses have unions that enforce poverty on some workers and in the case the NSW governments public service by bean counting assist them in taking work from the honest boss who has some understanding workers need to eat.
The NSW RTA is tragic in its blindness.

belly,
"HOURS WORKED DO NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL TO AND FROM WORK taking the truck to work is travel time!"

Does this mean they take the truck home from work?

I'm not sure I could equate earning $200/day with poverty, union reps must have it pretty good.

Rojo do have any understanding of the reality's of working for a living?
The trucks can not be parked on the side of the road with safety.
A union rep works as part of a crew of workers not as I am an official.
The casual traffic controllers holding a stop go bat at each end of the job these truck work on get $20.20 per hour.
The lowest paid RTA worker gets more and 4 weeks annual leave, mostly because of long term employment long service leave.
Sick days and public holidays are paid also to the RTA workers including their 8 tonne truck driver who gets a basic $3 an hour more than the victims of the bosses union.
Are you aware most truck drivers in full time work get more than this rate?
And get annual leave and all the benefits?, now for your maths, if they got 10 hours it is not 200 a day, if paid the AWARD conditions over time?
11 hours pay.
But they get ten then without pay drive the truck home.
However thanks for your post it highlights the fact some are more about creating wealth for some ignoring the poverty it makes others live in.

I hope just a few who read this thread get an understanding of why I want bosses unions highlighted.
Most seem to have a pattern bargaining system in place, against the law for a trade union.
One sat down last week with his client a labour hire supplier, he was in his mid 20,s and was talking about long term casual workers who do not always get a full weeks work.
They do however work long hours often 12 or just a bit more.
And they had an agreement that had just run out.
The employers sat without talking while his employer group negotiator informed the union he was here to play hard ball.
A 5 year agreement without wages rises was his only wages offer.
Stay on the same rates but reduced travel and meal allowances.
And zero overtime paid UNTIL 38 hours had been worked ,even if it was 3 12 hours shifts plus 2 hours.
No wage rise for 5 years!
Look back on rent, housing payments, fuel, other travel costs, interest rates and food prices from that long ago.
Could you plan a budget without a wage rise for 5 years?
If this federal government had the guts to issue us with the true facts on AWAs in force for that term good people would tremble.
Some bosses unions are dreadful.

Belly, I took the liberty of averaging your 10-12 hrs to come up with the $200. ie 11x18.65=205.15 and rounded for ease. Hope this clears up my mathematical abilities for you.

My apologies,
I'm not sure I could equate earning $200/day with poverty, union OFFICIALS must have it pretty good.

"do have any understanding of the reality's of working for a living?"

Sadly yes. Due to drought my 60hr weeks on the farm will still result in financial loss this year, and no guarantees for next season either although todays rain is most welcome. So $18.65 looks pretty good.

If traffic controllers get $20+ why be a truck driver? Or is it because we can't always be what we'd like.

Belly I think that the RTA could be taken up legally by their own HR licence regulation if they push the hours outside of the law. It they are taken to task, this is supposed to be a serious offence and possibly taken up by ICAC.

My understanding that legally to drive a heavy vehicle, you have an obligation to rest overy 4 hours otherwise it is considered a danger to the public. I also understand from the heavy vehicle licence that it is illegal to do more than an 8 hour shift, without a considerable break within 24 hours.

This all goes in the log book.

Overtime is in breach of a heavy vehicle licence.

If what you say is correct, why do we bother having RTA licences if the RTA is in breach of their own legal regulations?

Now it has been a few years since I drove a truck, correct me if I am wrong about the hours.

Saintfletcher you are not wrong I once drove HC trucks interstate and drove RTA trucks of this weight in part of my 22 years in that job.
YOU MUST NOT expect the RTA to act as it should ever!
Remember such miss use of the IR reform laws is openly taking place on RTA work sites.
Once you did not need to fill in a log book if you traveled less than a certain distance maybe this is the way it is done?
Tojo, if you work long hours on a farm you own how can you compare that to a workers only income?
At the end of a casual laborers work life he/she has no asset to sell.
Those casual workers I spoke of with the young gun bosses union wanting to insult them in my last post?
Here is the story as it may well unfold, they service a very big industry have for years.
In fact once in this casual job they can be picked up by the major employer and given full time work, about 10% have been in the past.
They are the cream on the table and bread in the kitchen for the labour hire group who employ them.
That firm won the contract from another who failed to keep the major firm happy.
These workers kept their job just changing labour hire bosses, the new employer needed them, the skills they have an not be picked up over night
Past wage rises have been linked to productivity increases and have averaged 4% a year.
True increases have been put in place and key performance indicators reached.
It has been a union negotiated agreement.
Union left the table after informing the bosses union he was insulting the members.
He then informed the union it would be a non union agreement.
Union members say they are taking steps.
Given the 350 word limit I will post those steps in another post.

So background again highly paid, in this case casual labour, skilled in a task few are skilled in.
That task is dirty and dangerous but if selected to become a full time worker highly rewarding.
Such a job rojo is so highly paid even this union official would be over welmed by the bank balance.
Take it from me I am paid much less than you think and less than those we talk about here.
The switch from highly paid to 5 years without pay rises highlights the failure of workchoices.
EBA had to give productivity increases and make key performance bench marks.
This proposal is to cut wages and increase profits by removing the existing good will between employer and employee.
Such agreements always lower standards in every KPR and in workers too.
The workers? some are already looking for a new job, some are telling the prime employer they will leave if this gos ahead.
Most will not stay if this agreement is imposed.
Other labour hire firms are circling the dieing one I highlight here.
I see a fall in its bottom line income.
And how can they ever expect to undo the damage to employee relations?
Skills needed have power even if unions can do nothing this site will see much change and just maybe an understanding of a basic is needed
if you pay peanuts you get monkeys.
What is so wrong with the old system that bought productivity increases and set benchmarks in safety and so much more?
Now consider this, if a trade union was to act so badly it would be national headlines in an instant, why do bosses unions get a free run?
The young gun? he is set to fail , so many have, he may knock on your door one day selling books you do not want he has form in such Fields.

Expecting truck drivers to ignore safety standards is dangerous to everyone.

I've worked in various professions from agency waitering for the 5 star hotels as a second job, to agency teaching in London schools in the UK.

In the Australian hospitality industry, they've been using agency staff on subcontracts to avoid standards.

In most cases, we were expected to break rules and regulations or we risked losing our jobs:

1. I was forced to Wait on people with a contagious airborne infection and I had a fever and bad flu. The agency knew this but threatened to sack me if I didn't take the risk. They claimed that if I called an ambulance for the fever, that I should not expect to return. If I could walk, I could work. Too bad about the health safety of the guests in the function.

2. Ordered to run on wet floors in kitchen: no warning signs, broken glass carrying 3-4 hot heavy plates.

3. Threatened with knives by psychopathic chefs who constantly whined that waiters were not running on the wet and glassy floors fast enough without smiling.

4. Double shifts imposed without notice. Again, running on wet floors over and over.

In the United Kingdom, under Thatcher they decentralised and deregulated central recruitment and brought in private recruitment agencies.

Standards of education went lower and the school environments became dysfunctional, salaries became irregular. Teachers left the profession by the droves. High staff turnovers made it impossible to plan.

Ever since, the UK has claimed that it has had a chronic teacher shortage. This is not actually true. The UK has more teachers than Australia. The UK teachers moved on to bigger and better things.

When the UK contract teachers from South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, it costs their schools twice as much as it did to keep their original British staff on. If only they treated them with care, they would have saved a fortune!

The Thatcher system is what Australia wants.

If given juristiction, centralised industrial relations solve many problems of unfairness, exploitation, safety standards, and doing business efficiently.

You need an understanding of the NSW RTA Saintfletcher unless you have been caught in that spider web its not easy.
More effort is given to white washing than getting the job done.
A centralized system? well Rudd seems to me to have put a better way forward than workchoices.
It is not every thing unions or bosses want but never could be.
It in my view is time for both sides to understand we are dealing in human lives not just dollars.
My pointed sarcasm in an above thread highlighting a labour hire group playing hard ball is on the way out is based on past events and an understanding of IR.
An outcome of cutting wages is often that the very best staff leave, to be replaced by lessor people, standards drop and prime contractors have zero loyalty to poor performers, that is labour providers too.
The young gun playing hard ball in fact has both his hands firmly around the throat of his labour hire client.
After the loss of 2 or 3 such fights[remember the trade union is not in the ring]he may well be selling books at our door.

I couldn't agree more belly. It is not just money, it is safey, it is nation building an infrastructure that works and security for everyone.

There is too much white washing from such burocracies like the RTA and not enough pro active standards. I remember when Australia used to take pride in work and safety standards. Now we have to white wash, as you put is, as the standards have slipped.

If there is an accident, there is only so much white washing that they can cover. The rest could uncover what they didn't want us to see. That is hypothetical but not impossible.