Australian unions present demands amidst recent strike activity
A trade union leader has vowed to inflict the most disruptive strikes in history on Australia, collapsing freight and passenger transport networks and choking supermarket food supplies. In an explosive speech, Transport Workers Union national secretary Michael Kaine threatened the widespread pain as 200 enterprise agreements between Australian workers and companies expire next year.
The agreements affect airlines Qantas and Virgin Australia, logistics companies Linfox and Toll, Amazon, supermarket chain Aldi, construction materials company Boral, waste disposal chain Cleanaway and airport ground handling firm Swissport. 'Make no mistake – this will be the largest co-ordinated industrial campaign in Australian transport history,' Mr Kaine (pictured) told the TWU's national conference in Brisbane on Wednesday. 'This alignment of agreements isn't accidental. It's been carefully orchestrated to maximise our collective bargaining power.'
Mr Kaine vowed the TWU, a trade union affiliated with Anthony Albanese 's Labor Party, was prepared to shut down Australia's transport logistics networks unless employers met union demands. 'We are prepared to shut down Australian transport,' he said. 'There will be disruption. It will be significant. It will be coordinated. And it will be effective.'
Mr Kaine also boasted the Labor Party would be in power for at least another six years, given the size of its landslide majority. 'We're now looking at the potential of six more years of Labor government, six more years of progress for working people,' he said. 'We are in the best position we have ever been in to create change.'
He argued the co-ordinated strikes - legally allowed during enterprise negotiations - would be designed to address workplace safety. 'This disruption isn't our goal - it's a means to an end,' Mr Kaine said. 'We must have an industry where workers stop dying, where they receive fair pay, in short, where standards aren't constantly undermined by ruthless, profiteering cost-cutting. From airports to highways, from distribution centres to city streets – whatever it takes to stop this client pressure killing workers, community members and good businesses.'
The Opposition's employment and workplace relations spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said Labor's multi-employer bargaining laws had encouraged unions to be more militant. 'This type of widespread and co-ordinated industrial action is exactly what I warned about at the time the multi-employer bargaining laws went through the previous Parliament,' she told Daily Mail Australia. 'The unions have been emboldened by an Albanese Government hellbent on handing them the sort power they desire and now they are threatening to "shut down Australian transport". 'This is a test for the new Workplace Relations Minister, Amanda Rishworth. She needs to ensure that these strikes do not go ahead. The Albanese Government needs to bring this militant union under control.'
Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth said workers had a right to take protected industrial action. 'While we support the rights of workers to take protected action, the general rate of industrial disputes remains low compared to historical trends,' she told Daily Mail Australia Workers are allowed to strike during enterprise bargaining negotiations thanks to the Fair Work Act of 2009, introduced by a Labor government.
The TWU's vow to shut down Australia's transport network is an extreme position compared with past blockades. In 1979, it declined to join 3,000 owner truck drivers in blockading highways in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia in protest at state government road taxes. The TWU counts Labor MPs and senators among its members including Tony Sheldon and new Ageing and Seniors Minister Sam Rae.
Since coming to power in 2022, the Albanese Government has also revived multi-employer bargaining where pay rises in a workplace can be replicated across an industry. 'When workers across the transport industry negotiate together, when they stand together, they can achieve outcomes that would be impossible in isolation,' Mr Kaine said.
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