Tipper drivers getting ready to rumble

• Owner Drivers
• 27th January 2012

Making a crust out of driving your own tipper truck has always been difficult but lately it has become nigh on impossible. That's why around 100 tipper operators rolled up for an early morning meeting on June 10 and made it clear that if their rates aren't increased they will stop work.

If they are not paid safe sustainable rates by July 1 they will pull up their trucks and wheels will not roll. The mood was pretty determined and I can't say I blame them. They are being treated like shit and something has to give.

Blokes are going broke every day virtually and it is nigh on impossible to keep heads above the water line in the cutthroat tipper industry.

Drivers are borrowing money to put fuel in their trucks and finding it impossible to pay their bills.

Housing developers, civil construction companies and the state government are all playing them off against each other and pushing rates down past sustainable
levels. I have never seen tipper owner-drivers doing it so tough - and I've never seen them so up in arms.

July 1 looms as an interesting day in the history of the WA tipper game.

If we don't take a stand now, we never will!!