Subscribe to RSSTrucking Obsession ‘Backward’
The debate about truckies has prompted the Maritime Union to call for a “balanced transport strategy that sees the bulk of heavy and long distance cargo transported on coastal shipping and rail.”
It says that this would avoid creating congestion and hazards through heavy trucking.
“The current Government’s obsession with heavy trucking is backward, socially irresponsible and environmentally harmful, and we need a new direction for New Zealand transport,” said Maritime Union general secretary, Joe Fleetwood.
What happens now with these containers? Rail or trucks?
His union is the latest to join in calls to tighten up industry regulations to protect truck drivers and the travelling public.
He says the horror stories of truckies working 100 hours is “the reality of a individualized industry where drivers do not have the protections of union membership and are being exploited in a hyper-competitive environment by the big companies they contract to.”
3 Comments
There is no doubt in my mind that the “trucking obsession” has somehow been orchestrated by trucking lobby interests. The massive multi-millionaire owned transport logistic companies are the winners here, and the truck drivers the pawns at the bottom of the pile.
We do know for a fact that the trucking lobby donates large sums of money to certain political parties. Why do you think they do that?
There is no doubt in my mind that the “trucking obsession” has somehow been orchestrated by trucking lobby interests. The massive multi-millionaire owned transport logistic companies are the winners here. The truck drivers are the pawns at the bottom of the pile.
We do know for a fact that the trucking lobby donates large sums of money to certain political parties. Why do you think they do that?
I am always a bit sceptical of a huge orchestrated thing - but certainly, a hundred different threads pulling of their own accord into the same direction - drag you into the shit just the same way as a big conspiracy.
At the same time, though NZ is so small that radical ideas can cause even more radical changes. And we do not have a conservative government, we have a pretty radical one. National is only too happy to let its stalwarts and their ACT proxies do stuff they would never get away with if the public was shown the end results.