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Inside VTUs vital fuel fight

Victorian tip-truck drivers have been engaged in struggles this year as they fight to receive adjusted fuel levies. After months of back and forth with the state government, it may finally be resolved.

Luke McCrone knows firsthand the long-winded fight tip-truck drivers have had to partake in to combat rising diesel prices in 2022. The Victorian Tippers United (VTU) spokesman has been constantly advocating for increased fuel levies for his sector to ensure workers went home with a fair day’s pay.

Recent developments mean he can now sit back and not suffer from fuel price increases.

“Things seem to be more or less resolved, which is good news,” McCrone told ATN. “It’s a relief now that we’ve gotten a good outcome in the end.”

In late March the VTU first began to speak up against rising fuel prices, as McCrone warned the state government that the VTU was planning a strike. It was swiftly met by the Victorian Transport Association (VTA) CEO Peter Anderson, who said the threats were disgraceful and not representative of the industry’s views.

After dismissing Anderson’s views as inappropriate, McCrone and the VTU continued fighting for a new fuel levy scale that adjusted each month according to the price of diesel.

Yet just days away from its first strike, the VTU suspended plans as the Victorian government initially agreed to introduce new fuel rates for tip truck drivers and the transport industry.

While waiting for the Transport Ministry Council to sign off on the re-calculation, more problems arose for the VTU. After the VTU welcomed the new tip truck owner driver minimum rates changes made by the government, the federal government then removed the fuel tax credit, diminishing much of the bonus that the initial fuel levy would have on the state’s tippers.

“The bureaucratic process for that first cost model revisit took longer than we would’ve liked,” McCrone says. “But within three weeks we started agitating the government and got our improvement around Easter.”

A few months of respite followed as the state’s tip-truck drivers grappled to handle soaring fuel prices. Come July, the VTU became vocal once again.

In early July the VTU led a stop work movement and held a meeting over the rising diesel prices, with around 1,000 tippers abandoning work for the day in Melbourne and 320 attending the meeting to discuss next actions.

“We had been campaigning for some relief from fuel prices for a while after we got the state government to improve the rates on their jobs,” McCrone says.


RELATED ARTICLE: More protests may be on the horizon for the VTU


It took for something drastic to happen to regain the state government’s attention. In late July, the VTU led a convoy of tip-trucks that descended on the state parliament house, causing traffic through the city and on the West Gate Bridge to come to a halt.

The peak hour chaos, filled with slow-moving tip-trucks, finally caused the state government to listen and negotiate an ending.

“What happened since is the government reviewed the Truck Industry Council rates and there’s been an improvement of around $5 an hour for tandems and around $10 an hour for truck and trailers,” McCrone says.

The new changes may seem minimal, but they’re impactful. McCrone says the levies are much less than other sectors because a fuel rate of up to $1.85 per litre is already built into the tip-truck driver rate scale. The additional fuel levies that the VTU fought so hard for only come into action when the price of diesel rises above that rate. When fuel next soars, the levy means tippers won’t lose money from their profits as they pay more for fuel.

“It also enables us to go to plant hire companies who we work for and get improvement in rates that will have a floating up-and-down component to handle the fluctuating price of diesel,” McCrone says.

Such is the way the VTU’s fight against governments and fuel prices have gone in 2022, McCrone says the union has to wait one final time to confirm the change. If the state government gazettes the fuel levy rate change on August 18, the rates will become effective from then onwards. Non-government work for tippers will also increase with it, as calculations will be done at the start of each month to ensure rates account for the changing price of diesel.

“It takes the risk out of it for tippers,” McCrone says. “It allows small businesses like mine that can’t handle the risk to have that financial pressure taken off our shoulders.”

Although he admits the levy would’ve been more important two months ago when diesel prices were at their highest, McCrone says the change is welcomed by the industry.

It all began after the West Gate Bridge and Parliament House strike, when Industrial Relations Victoria and advisors met with members of the VTU to get the rates changed for government tip-truck driver jobs.

McCrone says the process over nearly half a year has been challenging at times but ultimately worthwhile, as tip-truck drivers can now return to tipping dirt without a financial burden looming over them.

“It was frustrating dealing with the issue with people who had no idea of the industry and struggling to get them to comprehend the costs and deficiencies in the existing models,” McCrone says. “But thankfully we got a good outcome in the end, so it’s all worth it.

“What matters is that the fuel component is now there. I’m hoping we can now take a pause on these issues and get back to moving dirt for the next year at least until rates change again.”

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