Union claims shift of driver jobs to Direct Couriers an ‘unethical’ move
Transport Workers Union’s New South Wales branch (TWU NSW) has taken the cudgels to deal between secure document handling service Iron Mountain and consistently growing firm Direct Couriers.
The union accuses US-headquartered Iron Mountain of effectively walking away from its contracts with current drivers for services to a range of high-profile domestic and international firms.
It claims Iron Mountain recently revealed plans to outsource the security of its clients’ data and documents to Direct Couriers, the burgeoning courier and taxi truck services company with a presence in eastern state capitals and New Zealand and a fleet of more than 800 vehicles.
“In doing so, Iron Mountain is refusing to honour its existing contract with its current drivers, which doesn’t expire until 2019, in pursuit of an irresponsible, unethical and unfair cash grab,” TWU NSW says.
“Drivers have been notified that in order to keep their jobs, they will have to move to Direct Couriers and accept a 35 per cent pay cut.”
Direct Couriers, which has slowly built it eastern Australian presence over the past 18 years before expanding to Auckland in 2014 and Adelaide in 2016
is accused of having provided the union with “no guarantee that current drivers will continue their longstanding and trusted relationships with these organisations, and that it won’t instead send cheaper, unknown, untrained drivers on an ad-hoc basis”.
“We asked Iron Mountain to uphold its commitment to its professional and trusted drivers, and continue to engage them under the current agreement,” NSW state secretary Richard Olsen says.
“Iron Mountain has rejected these requests.
“It is clear that Iron Mountain does not intend to do business responsibly and ethically with its workers or its clients.
“This is a grave concern when it comes to the handling of confidential data and documents.
“Every Australian should be concerned about this.”
ATN is awaiting responses to the allegations from Iron Mountain and Direct Couriers and TWU NSW on its next steps.