First Union is calling for the New Zealand transport industry to implement a Safe Rates system that it says will end competitive tendering models that incentivise unsafe practices.

It comes after claims of falsified logbooks in the trucking industry as drivers are forced to cut corners on behalf of their employers.

“Safe Rates refers to the idea that road-transport employers, and not drivers, should be responsible for the actual costs of operating the supply chain, and expenses incurred in delivering a contract should be borne by the actual economic employer rather than squeezing them out of drivers’ wages and conditions,” said Jared Abbott, First Union secretary for transport, logistics and manufacturing.

“For years in New Zealand, major employers in the road-transport industry have been explicitly passing on significant costs in the supply chain to workers, which means pay and conditions have been cut and unsafe practices have taken hold as the norm.”

Abbot said the falsified log book claims were just one example of how the contracting model penalised drivers and led to unsafe practices on the road.

“Meanwhile, economic employers have been able to pass on costs to their contractors and obscure the actual cost of doing business while simultaneously weakening the power of drivers to negotiate fair wages that reflect the work required to do the job,” he said.

“At the moment, road transport is, unfortunately, a sector built on a lie.”

The global Safe Rates campaign has been marked by victories for the Transport Workers Union at the state level in Australia, as well as the passage of Safe Rates legislation in South Korea, where minimum pay rates were established in 2018. Safe Rates or similar systems also exist in the US, Canada and the Netherlands.

“It’s rare that employers and drivers are on exactly the same page, but everyone in the industry knows that current procurement practices are responsible for the mess we’re in,” said Abbott.

“And it’s not just the explicit road- transport sector either – these issues apply equally in forestry and public transport, where unregulated competitive tendering is driving unsafe behaviour down the supply chain.”