It was a clear cut case of sham contracting says TWU Organiser MICK KNOWLES

There is a vigorous grapevine that spreads through every nook and cranny of the transport industry and feeds back into the TWU. Not much happens that we don't hear about. Fart out of tune and someone will send us a recording.

So when we received a tip-off that all was not right and proper at a Toll Ipec agency in Rockingham we said thanks for the info and began checking things out.
Our enquiries revealed that the agency is run by a firm which trades under the name of Rick James Transport and some things were definitely not right.
For starters, employees driving vans owned by the company had to provide ABN numbers and operate as private contractors.
They now have a term for this and it is "Sham Contracting"

Sham contracting is an arrangement where an employment relationship is disguised as independent contracting when in effect the worker is really an employee covered by our workplace relations laws.
And - in our view - that was exactly what was happening at the Toll Ipec agency being run by Rick James Transport.

Drivers were being paid $19.40 flat working 60 hours a week with no overtime rates or meal allowances. No superannuation contributions were being made for the drivers either and they were required to pay their own tax out of that lousy rate.
When I confronted owner Rick James with the news he was far from happy and appeared quite shocked when I told him that ‘sham contracting' was illegal.
If convicted he was liable for fines of $33,000 per offence.
He told me he operated 10 vans on ABN numbers and had two legitimate contractors who have their own vehicles.

Since our intervention, Rick has converted the 10 so-called ABN contractors over to permanent employees and things seem to be in order.
However, one thing is for sure, if they aren't, we'll soon find out about it.