StarTrack strike to delay parcel deliveries

Workers at the Australia Post subsidiary will walk off the job for 24 hours, disrupting deliveries including essential supplies.

StarTrack workers will walk off the job for 24 hours next Thursday over job security. Picture: Supplied/ StarTrack

Parcel deliveries to homes and businesses will be disrupted next week when workers at Australia Post subsidiary StarTrack hold a 24-hour strike as part of a national “job security” campaign by the Transport Workers Union.

The TWU said the decision by workers to strike next Thursday was made after the company refused requests for urgent bargaining negotiations to take place this week.

StarTrack said on Friday it had put contingencies in place “to ensure that any delivery impact is minimised”.

“We are disappointed that the TWU is doing this at a time when the delivery of essential items has never been more important, particularly those in vulnerable regional communities requiring essential supplies such as medicines, protective equipment and vaccines,” it said.

The TWU said medical supplies, including vaccines, were exempted from the action.

About 2000 StarTrack union members – 70 per cent of the workforce – have the legal right to take strike action after a ballot last week recorded strong support for protected industrial action.

In wake of the result, the union wrote to StarTrack on Monday, restating the workers’ claims and seeking talks this week. It said StarTrack refused to meet this week.

TWU national secretary Michael Kaine said the outsourcing of work at some StarTrack yards was as high as 70 per cent “starving employees of overtime and threatening their jobs in the future”.

“We are disappointed that the TWU is doing this at a time when the delivery of essential items has never been more important.” Picture: Mark Stewart

The union is calling for labour hire workers to receive the same pay and conditions as employees, caps on the use of outside hire, and commitments from StarTrack to offer all available hours to employees before contracting out.

Mr Kaine accused StarTrack management of “toying with people’s livelihoods at a time of intense pressure on workers”.

“StarTrack has deliberately and repeatedly created unreasonable delays to resolve the job security concerns of its workforce,” he said.

“For months now, the workers sweating it out in trucks and distribution centres to meet extreme demand have been battling behind the scenes to protect their jobs against an insurgence of outsourcing to lower paid workers.

Mr Kaine said the community expects “more from government-owned Australia Post than for hardworking people’s jobs to be on the line when demand and revenues are through the roof”.

“It is no coincidence that jobs and standards are being driven down across the major transport operators,” he said.

“Thanks to government inaction, Australia is facing the double-edged sword of ‘The Amazon Effect’. Supply chains are wrung dry by cost cutting by wealthy retailers while operators are forced to compete with exploitative AmazonFlex. This would all be solved by an independent tribunal to set minimum protections for workers.”

In a statement, StarTrack said it made its “best and final pay offer”, including a pay rise of 9 per cent over three years, delivered as three per cent compounding each year.

“This is the best pay offer among our competitors. StarTrack is not proposing any reductions in pay or conditions for its employees,” it said.

Denying that job security was under threat, StarTrack said less than one-third of the workforce voted to support the strike action.

“StarTrack’s enterprise agreements, which were negotiated with the TWU in 2017 and 2018, already contain significant job security protections including paying EBA labour rates to labour-hire personnel; paying EBA labour rates to outside hire and independent contractors, and converting casual employees after regular and systematic engagement over a certain period of time,” it said.

StarTrack said it had offered to further enhance job security protections including introducing new labour-hire conversion rights; enhancing casual conversion rights, and improving auditing processes to ensure outside hire suppliers were providing EBA rates of pay.

“We have acted and negotiated in good faith throughout this process and we call on the TWU to do the same,” it said.

Mr Kaine said StarTrack on Thursday called NSW police to block a union official with a legal right of entry permit from entering a site before being instructed by Comcare to allow access under health and safety laws.

He said the official was then shut in a room for five hours before being able to inspect the site.

The union is seeking similar job security guarantees on behalf of thousands of workers at other major transport operators.

A FedEx protected action ballot will close at 5pm on Friday today, while ballots at Bevchain and Linfox close on Monday and Tuesday respectively.

Negotiations are ongoing at Toll and Toll Global Express – now owned by Allegro – following a 24-hour strike by thousands of workers last month.