General News

One of the companies transporting gear onto the Gorgon supply base in Karratha is South Australian firm BT Transport. I'd spoken over the phone to the owner of the company, a bloke by the name of Mal Beattie but I'd never met any of his drivers. However, I came across a husband and wife team, who …

Wally Webb reckons prison inmates are provided with better amenities than WA's long distance truckies. "At least they get a toilet in their cell," he said with a chuckle. Wally drives North West for Jolly's transport and says the lack of facilities at truck stops is an absolute disgrace.

A Bibra Lake transport company has been fined $30,000 over an incident in which a worker's legs were crushed under the wheels of a truck trailer. Cockburn Transport - pleaded guilty to two charges in October and was fined in the Fremantle Magistrates Court. The company was fined $25,000 for failin…

The Transport Workers Union has launched a major campaign aimed at improving pay and conditions for North West truck drivers. "A lot of drivers on North West routes are being ripped off," said TWU state secretary Jim McGiveron. "There are many small to medium companies that are cutting the guts ou…

More WA jobs are about to be lost with news that Inghams Chickens are about to start trucking in their ‘fresh' chicken products from Adelaide. The contracts of 15 owner drivers expire in December and they have been told they can apply for one of only FIVE contracts to be on offer after that date.

Jobs are getting harder to get due to the economic downturn and the protection of our members jobs and wages is our NUMBER ONE PRIORITY. Concrete agitator driver Peter Cross (third from left) was sacked by Hanson Concrete in May because he signed a petition complai…

Tanker driver Mick Connelly was the elected safety representative for Kwinana based company Fuel Distributors of Western Australia when he was sacked in May. The first call Mick made after he was tramped was to the TWU. Mick explained that after months of reporting serious safety hazards and not ha…

Rumours that Fontera Foods were about to shutdown down their Peters Ice Cream factory in Balcatta proved true when they recently sounded the death knell on the iconic WA business. The NZ firm had taken over the Peters & Brownes business about five years back and things started going backwards so…

Not wearing a high visibility safety vest may have cost a worker his life when he was run over by a prime mover in Toll Transport's Wagga Wagga yard in NSW. The truck driver was employed by Wayne Lewis Transport He was rolling up a tarpaulin on the roadway at the depot at 1am in the morning when he…

Laurie Egan was walking down the designated pedestrian pathway in Specialized Container Transport's rail shed at Forrestfield when he was hit by a reversing fork-lift. The machine knocked him over and ran over his legs crushing one of them. When Laurie screamed out to get the machine off him, the f…