‘Comprehensive Campaigning’ in the NSW Transport Industry: Bridging the Divide Between Regulation and Union Organizing

Abstract

The transport industry in New South Wales is characterized by widespread precarious employment in the form of a workforce of truck owner-drivers who largely fall outside the scope of common law protections for employee drivers. A sizeable proportion of these contingent owner-drivers have been successfully organized to become active members of the New South Wales Transport Workers Union (TWU). This article briefly examines the industry structure within which this contingent workforce of truck owner-drivers has arisen. It analyses the strategic campaign strategy that underpins the leading role of this trade union in its (so far) successful struggle to obtain and maintain innovative regulatory protections providing substantial material benefits to this workforce, in the form of enforceable minimum working conditions. In so doing, the article demonstrates the considerable potential for union involvement in diverse regulatory frameworks, which may expand existing approaches to organizing and building union capacity.