Convenient Cartage ordered to cough up $23,000

• General News
• 17th July 2013

Local trucking firm Convenient Cartage has been ordered to pay truck driver Tom Scott more than $23,000 by the Industrial Magistrate.

The money was for wages owing to Tom from when he worked with them as a long distance driver.

He had been employed carting freight to a mine located several hundred kilometres out of Port Hedland.

The Industrial Magistrate ruled that Convenient Cartage had underpaid Tom, and ordered they pay him $23,310.

Convenient Cartage owner Natalie Raschilla disputed that Tom was owed any wages at all and the case went to court.

Because the firm is not a party to a Certified Agreement our claim was based on the rates of pay in the Road Transport (Long Distance Operations) Award.

Convenient Cartage had introduced a “trip rate” system of payment for the trip to the mine. The Award allows an employer to pay long distance drivers a trip rate, provided that the employer has an accredited fatigue management plan.

The Court ruled that Convenient Cartage did not have such a plan in place during the relevant period, and therefore they had to pay Tom the hourly Award rates.

Fortunately, Tom had kept a diary of the trips and the hours he had worked. We were able to use that information to work out the amount owed to Tom.

The Industrial Magistrate accepted that Tom’s diary was an accurate record of Tom’s hours. He agreed with the TWU calculations on the wages owed to Tom apart from a small adjustment.

This case shows the value of long distance drivers, particularly those driving within WA, keeping their own record of the trips that they do, and the hours worked.

That way, if there is a dispute down the track, about the work that was done or the hours worked, then the driver has that documentation to fall back on.