The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has authorised an arrangement between CSR Ltd in Queensland and the owner drivers of its concrete trucks to establish terms and conditions of employment including cartage rates.
The ACCC has considered a number of similar arrangements in other industries, particularly rural. While the circumstances of each matter varies the ACCC was satisfied in this case there was benefit to the public in the arrangement.
In this instance, the owner drivers are locked into CSR in the sense that it owns the agitators, the customers are the customers of CSR and not the owner-drivers and the trucks are painted in CSR colours. Also it appeared that CSR would have little difficulty in recruiting new owner drivers. On that basis the ACCC concluded that there is some potential for the owner-drivers to be the subject of undue wage discrimination and there is benefit to the public in allowing owner drivers to come together to improve the fairness of the negotiating process, as well as to some significant savings in transaction costs from one-on-one bargaining.
Other public benefits were also identified including incentives for owner drivers to increase their productivity and cost savings to CSR referred to above in not having to negotiate individually with owner drivers.
The ACCC considered that these benefits would allow CSR to be more competitive in the supply of concrete and ultimately this could be expected to flow through to the community by way of lower construction costs.
The arrangements between owner-drivers and CSR are company specific and have some similarities to enterprise bargaining. Previously there has been some history of industry-wide rather than company-specific bargaining.
Even though the owner drivers are independent businessmen they are using the TWU to provide assistance in their negotiations with CSR. The TWU sees its role as being limited to providing advice and secretarial services to the owner drivers. The ACCC sees that as an appropriate role for the TWU in the circumstances. If it were to be otherwise and the TWU were to seek similar conditions industry -wide that would increase the anti-competitiveness of the arrangements. Authorisation is therefore conditional on that.
For further information about this media release: Ms Lin Enright, Director, Public Relations, (02) 6264 2808
The ACCC has considered a number of similar arrangements in other industries, particularly rural. While the circumstances of each matter varies the ACCC was satisfied in this case there was benefit to the public in the arrangement.
In this instance, the owner drivers are locked into CSR in the sense that it owns the agitators, the customers are the customers of CSR and not the owner-drivers and the trucks are painted in CSR colours. Also it appeared that CSR would have little difficulty in recruiting new owner drivers. On that basis the ACCC concluded that there is some potential for the owner-drivers to be the subject of undue wage discrimination and there is benefit to the public in allowing owner drivers to come together to improve the fairness of the negotiating process, as well as to some significant savings in transaction costs from one-on-one bargaining.
Other public benefits were also identified including incentives for owner drivers to increase their productivity and cost savings to CSR referred to above in not having to negotiate individually with owner drivers.
The ACCC considered that these benefits would allow CSR to be more competitive in the supply of concrete and ultimately this could be expected to flow through to the community by way of lower construction costs.
The arrangements between owner-drivers and CSR are company specific and have some similarities to enterprise bargaining. Previously there has been some history of industry-wide rather than company-specific bargaining.
Even though the owner drivers are independent businessmen they are using the TWU to provide assistance in their negotiations with CSR. The TWU sees its role as being limited to providing advice and secretarial services to the owner drivers. The ACCC sees that as an appropriate role for the TWU in the circumstances. If it were to be otherwise and the TWU were to seek similar conditions industry -wide that would increase the anti-competitiveness of the arrangements. Authorisation is therefore conditional on that.
For further information about this media release: Ms Lin Enright, Director, Public Relations, (02) 6264 2808