Agmates

One of the two major groups coordinating the Truckies Strike has pulled out of the shutdown.

Mick Pattel - National Road Transport Forum writes:

After a crisis meeting today with Queensland Shadow Transport Minister, Mr Tim Nicholls, we are urging all supporters of the shutdown to begin work immediately.

Round one is over and the arrogant Queensland Bligh government has sent their transport minister on holidays, making it impossible for our issues to be heard.

We have to call it off because the appropriate Ministers in Qld and NSW have gone into hiding and quite frankly, we find that ridiculously rude.

The frustrations for the transport industry are far from resolved and the industry will now regroup in a formal entity and make clear plans for this next attempt to highlight their concerns to the public and government.

We have learnt so much from this exercise and this is only the start.
Tim Nicholls has given us an undertaking that he will be taking on the issues and taking up the fight to the Labor government. He is supportive of the nonsense about demerit points on log-books and has made a commitment to take the fight up to labor on the industries behalf.

We will be working to form a new organisation in the coming weeks. Legally, we now have to look at different entities from which to operate.

We will also be making sure that log book breaches receive the attention that they deserve. Tim Nicholls and Ian Rickuss have assured us that they will help truckies that have unfair charges on log-books if they are not fatigued related . I encourage all truckies to take their breaches to their local member if they feel they don’t deserve it.

We are advising our member Truckies across the country to go back to work immediately.

Bunny Brown - Australian Long Distance Owners & Drivers Association ALDODA

I have just spoken to Bunney by phone. He said:

Our delegates and members are meeting in Melbourne, Brisbane and Townsville tomorrow morning. The members will decide at those meeting what our next action will be.

It is up to our members if we continue with the shutdown or go back to work. There has been tremendous support for the shutdown from the members and it is really up to them where we go from here.

Peter Schuback - Mineral & Mine Movers Transport

I spoke to Peter By Phone. He said:

I am extremely disappointed to hear the Pattel group has gone back to work. I guess that means it’s over and it appears that what we have been protesting against is here to stay.

I will have to talk to our supporters and see what they want to do, but I’d guess that they will go back to work.

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Have Your Say! What are your thoughts on the Shutdown and the outcomes?

Day 1 - 5pm. 28th July 2008

Estimates of the numbers of trucks that are parked up run between 45% to 60% across Australia. Reports are that virtually the only trucks on highways in QLD, NSW, Victoria and South Australia are the Multi -Nation transport companies like Toll, Lynfox and Scotts who have all condemned the shutdown and its organizers.

The protest has collapsed in Western Australia with only 50 trucks turning out for a protest drive in Perth with organizers calling off the 2 week shutdown due to lack of support.

A similar protest drive in Melbourne attracted 30 trucks whilst in Brisbane an estimated 40-50 trucks turned out.

Agmates has spoken to the leaders of the 3 different and separate organizations coordinating the shutdown activities:

Bunny Brown - President of the Australian Long Distance Owners & Drivers Association ALDODA.

ALDODA is the group that is organizing the truck protests in capital cities. Bunny said:

Our day started with an interview on Adelaide radio this morning. Federal transport Minister Anthony Albanese was on first. It was disappointing to hear him say that he had offered to meet with us, but we had refused. This is just not correct, in fact part of the reason we have started this action is because the minister has rejected every request we have made to his office for a meeting.

There is very good grass roots support across the country. The Brisbane protest went off very smoothly. At present we have 20 odd trucks parked up at Coolac near Gundagi near the NSW, Victoria border. We are waiting for more trucks to arrive and plans are a foot to launch a protest from there in a few days.

I have not been able to speak to or organizer in Western Australia to see what the situation is there.

Mick Pattel - The National Road Transport Forum.

I was able to catch up with Mick Pattel late this afternoon. Mick had been snowed under with media interviews most of the day which started with the TV show Sunrise at 7am this morning. Mick said:

I’d like to thank all of those owner drivers who have parked up. It looks to us that we have about 50-60% of all drivers off the road today.

It has been unfortunate that in almost every interview I’ve done I’ve had to answer persistant question about what the ALDODA group is doing. I’ve done my best to avoid being drawn into discussing possible blockades of highways etc.

We are fully cooperating with the police in Queensland and are asking our drivers to stand firm and keep their trucks parked up at home for the duration of the stoppage. At present we still have had no contact from the federal transport minister re a meeting.

Peter Schuback - Mineral & Mines Movers Transport

Peter has spent the day at home with his phones running hot with truckies and the media after his coverage in this mornings Brisbane Courier Mail. He told us:

There seems to be great grass roots support across Australia except for Western Australia. It’s probably understandable that it’s not strong there as the WA government has announced they they will not be introducing the National Transport Laws in the tough form that they are or will be in the Eastern States.

I believe that you can expect to see truck protest in Sydney and Melbourne in the next few days.

The three groups all represent small fleet owners and wage earning drivers. Whilst they have slightly different things they are calling for, all 3 are unanimous on the major issues. The Transport Workers Union and the peak trucking Industry Body Australian Trucking Association both condemn the strike action.

These 3 organizations have risen because a large number of ordinary owner drivers and wage earning truck drivers have felt let down and unrepresented by their Union and the peak trucking bodies.

The fact that there are 3 of them leaves the whole movement vulnerable to being divided and conquered by the large and powerful forces that are amassed against them, being Labor Governents State & Federal, Big Business and the Unions.

These organizations will have a field day with the 3 groups in the media playing one off against the other and ultimately winning the hearts and minds of the general public.

From day 1 it has become clear for the shutdown action to succeed Nationally that the three groups need to merge to form one cohesive organization that represents the 1,000’s of owner drivers and wage earning drivers who have come to them because their traditional reps have left them out to dry.

These people who are backing the groups are honest hard working men and women who along with their families are making an incredible financial sacrifice to support their respective leaders in this shutdown. All of these ‘working Australians’ have car repayments, mortgages and household bills to pay and can ill afford too have no income for 2 weeks and run the risk being sacked.

I’d urge the respective group leaders too think long and hard about what they are doing and remember that they’re members have placed their trust and faith in you to achieve the right outcomes for all down trodden drivers. The truck drivers that are supporting you are looking for leadership, not petty squabbling and infighting between the groups. This will if not corrected, ultimately derail the whole shutdown action.

I’d recommend that if the three groups cannot come together and form one united cohesive association too fight for they’re members and the positive outcomes that the Unions and ATA won’t, then they should stop playing politics, call the whole thing off right now and let they’re loyal truckie members get back to making a living.

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See all Articles on the Transport Shutdown Here

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Have your say! What do you think?

9am Saturday the 26th of July 2008.

Federal and State Governments and big business are frantically trying to intimidate truckies into stopping the The National Transport Industry shut which is scheduled to start at midnight tomorrow night.

Mick Pattel:

Private transport Owner operator Mick Pattel the voice of 1,000s of disaffected owner drivers and drivers is currently in Brisbane attending a meeting with a leading Brisbane QC. Mick has had to seek high level legal advise after receiving a number of threats of legal actions by large national transport operators who have stated they intend to sue him personally over any commercial losses they sustain if the shutdown proceeds.

Speaking to Mick yesterday he told me he had received 5 identical letters from major transport operators threatening him. I have not seen copies of the letters but will ‘name & shame’ them once I sight the copies.

One of Mick’s advisers has told me that the meeting today was necessary as it had come to light that the Federal and State governments are considering charging him under tough Federal Terrorism laws if the shutdown goes ahead.

Transport owners and drivers behind the shutdown have proposed to withdraw their services by ‘parking up’ their trucks at homes and their depots to bring pressure on governments to meet their demands.

ALDODA

I spoke with Bunny Brown president of the Australian Long Distance Owners & Drivers Association this morning. He told me that many of their members had already parked their trucks and would be withdrawing their services as of midnight tomorrow night. He said recent media reports of their members blockading highways and taking violent action against any non participating drivers were a media beat up.

He said reported comments by ALDODA media spokesperson Lyn Bennetts advocating violence were a complete media beat up. Bunny went on to say:

“We are not planning road blocks, blockades or any violence against anybody. The shutdown is totally voluntary. It’s up to our member owner and drivers too choose to withdraw their services for two weeks. Our members have been threaten with dismissal and the loss of work contracts by the big freigth companies. We however consider it just bluff. There is not enough drivers out there for these companies to sack 100’s of drivers or hundreds of sub-contractors. It’s just attempted stand over tactics.”

Media

Corporate Owned Mainstream Media

The mainstream media has virtually enforced a complete blackout on the coming shutdown. This is a blight on the Media and Media Standards in Australia.

Despite repeated attempts by owners & drivers to get mainstream media cover on what is potentially the biggest story in Australia they have refused ‘point blank’ to print or publish anything. One has to wonder why? Does it have something to do with the fact that the big companies involved are major corporate advertisers in those publications?

The ABC

Thank god for the ABC. The only exception to this has been the ABC’s 7.30 report that did a segment on the issue last Monday. This segment was really just the Transport Workers Union take on the situation. The union with the possibly that 1,000’s of it’s driver members will participate (independent of the union) in the shutdown has been playing hoky poky with the issue. (one foot in - one foot out).

The Queensland Country Life

Rural Press (the $14billion dollar Fair Fax Media Empire) through the Queensland Country Life ran a front page story “Blockade” Why the transport industry is going on Strike.

Shutdown participants were extremely disappointed. They were at pains during interviews with Melissa Martin to point out that there would be no Blockades and that the action was not a Strike.

Both Mick Pattel and ALDODA have denied any talk of Blockades or strike action as both invoke the possibility of prosecution under tough state and federal Anti-Terrorism and Industrial relations laws. Yet this is what reporter Martin and the QCL editorial staff choose to embolden across the front cover. Mick Pattel was extremely disappointed in the coverage.

Federal Government

The federal transport minister Anthony Albanese in an attempt to head off the shutdown announced late yesterday an inquiry into how truck drivers are paid. The national transport Commission will conduct the investigation but will not make its recommendation until November.

The minister made the announcement at a press conference yesterday and the Ministers media release was published on Agmates last night as a comment by an anonymous party.

The story was on Channel 9’s Night Line last night at midnight with representatives of Coles and Woolworths saying they were paying millions more this year in freight charges. The Night Line report said that these extra payments were made to the big national freight companies who they contracted with. The report said they believed these extra payments were not being passed on from the large national transport operators to their sub-contractors.

Next Update: Mick Pattel will call me with the latest update after his meeting with the QC and the advice he receives.

See more articles on the shutdown by clicking here.

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