By Annabelle Regan and Sophie McInnerny

Posted February 07, 2017 15:31:09

Transport groups have expressed frustration at being left out of a safety summit organised by the Transport Workers Union.

The national summit of truckies, academics and politicians looked at a safety report by Macquarie University which was critical of the abolition of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal.

It was abolished last year amid intense criticism from owner-operator businesses concerned it would send them broke by increasing pay rates.

The president of South Australian Road Transport Association, Steve Shearer, was annoyed that his and other transport organisations were not invited or not told about last week's summit.

They included the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator, Australian Trucking Association and the National Road Transport Association.

Mr Shearer claimed they had been left out.

"The union only wants to work with people who agree precisely with what the union wants," he said.

"It looks very much like the unions had a summit with its friends and nobody else, now that's not a credible summit.

"It wouldn't deal properly with the issues."

The TWU said other transport groups were invited but could not attend the summit.

It had arranged later meetings to inform them of the summit's outcomes while acknowledging their importance toward a safer heavy transport industry.

The Macquarie University report said a tribunal was needed to eliminate tight scheduling, unpaid work and inadequate pay rates.

The report included a survey of truck drivers which found 80 per cent worked more than 50 hours per week with some working more than 80 hours.

It also found some owner-drivers were reluctant to refuse an unsafe load.

Current regulations meant a driver could log up to 72 driving-hours in a week while extra accreditation provided for a driver to log up to 84 hours in a seven-day period.

Mr Shearer said the weekly limits were created with help from fatigue researchers and had seen serious injury and fatality rates fall dramatically since their introduction.

Topics: unions, occupational-health-and-safety, road-transport, sa, australia

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Industry calls for better cooperation from TWU on safety for truckies - ABC Online