Above photo, 24 October 2023: Couriers Please drivers and supporters rally outside the company’s Western Sydney depot on the eve of the workers submitting a petition to the bosses demanding their rights. The workers are threatening industrial action if their demands are not met.

Brave Gig Workers Take a Stand

Support the Drivers Standing Up
to the Bosses of Couriers Please!

27 October 2023: Sydney drivers working for Couriers Please are taking a brave stand against their exploitation. Two days ago, nearly fifty drivers sent their bosses a petition demanding improved working conditions. Fed up that the company has been arrogantly dismissing their grievances, workers are now threatening industrial action. These drivers are amongst the increasing number of workers in Australia who are employed in gig-type arrangements in sectors like food delivery, taxi/ride-sharing, courier and cleaning. Although workers in these sectors toil away for bosses, they are often not classed as employees. Instead their bosses engage them as “contractors” or “franchisees”. This allows the corporate owners to avoid paying workers annual leave and sick pay while ensuring that those that work for them do not have even the modest protections available to employees. With no job security, business owners very often rip-off gig workers at an even more extreme rate than they exploit other workers.

Bosses play up to these “contractors” the – in truth very remote – possibility that they too could eventually build up enough financial resources to themselves hire and exploit other workers. This is in order to instill an individualistic outlook amongst workers. This helps the bosses separate workers from each other – a goal that is also facilitated by the bosses paying each “contractor” differently depending on output. The bosses’ goal is further advanced by the fact that in such “contractor” arrangements, workers are not even technically employees of the same firm. By dividing workers from each other, the capitalist bosses make it harder for workers to unite together to stand up for their rights. Thus it takes particular resolve for gig worker “contractors” or “franchisees” like the drivers at Couriers Please to indeed take a stand. They deserve and need the backing of all class conscious workers and all supporters of workers rights.

Intense Exploitation

Before even starting work, Couriers Please drivers have to “buy” a “franchise” from the company – that is the “right” to service an area for the company! Currently the company is advertising the sale of such “franchises” for $15,000 to $25,000. Yet while engaging their drivers as “franchisees”, the corporation imposes on them all the usual obligations of employees. Drivers have to wear the company’s uniform and brandish the company’s logo on their vehicles. Most tellingly, drivers are obliged to conduct deliveries for the company five days a week. If they do not, they are often effectively fined because they have to pay any amount that the replacement driver hired by the company delivers below a set amount. Yet while having all the obligations of employees, Couriers Please drivers have none of the protections available to employees and all the obligations of a franchisee. Thus drivers have to provide and service their own vehicle, pay for fuel use and pay for all the different insurances that they need. All this combined with the poor amount that Couriers Please pays drivers means that, after expenses, most of the drivers receive very low net hourly incomes. Meanwhile, the company imposes financial penalties on drivers if they fail to meet “On Time Performance” (OTP) delivery targets that are so unreasonable that two-thirds of drivers constantly struggle to meet them. A survey found that half the drivers were working more than 50 hours per week and beginning their shifts around 3 or 4am.

The pressure to meet delivery targets, low net pay, long hours and unnatural daily start times combine to cause high stress and a poor lifestyle for many drivers. Three years ago, a Courier’s Please driver died due to the extreme fatigue of his job. Since then life has become even harder for drivers. Fuel prices have surged, as has general inflation, thus greatly increasing drivers’ operating costs. In contrast, the company has increased its margins by lifting the price that it charges customers for delivery of non-standard-sized items – but the drivers’ payment has not been lifted.

Company Set to Slash Legally-Mandated “Safety Net”

There are some modest legal rights available to courier drivers formally employed as “contractors”. A NSW Industrial Relations Commission determination mandates a minimum “safety net” payment that a “contract” courier must receive over each two month period. It consists of the “safety net” hourly rate multiplied by the number of hours worked by the driver. If the driver receives less gross income than this “safety net” over a two month period, their boss must top up the drivers payment until the “safety net” is met. However, this “safety net” is so low that, even with it, one-third of Couriers Please drivers, after paying vehicle expenses, were receiving less net income than Australia’s minimum wage! When the “safety net” was finally raised in 2022 for the first time in 15 years (!), it gave just a 40% rise from the 2007 level to be phased in over three years. This is despite 2025 prices predicted to be nearly 60% higher than 2007 levels. In other words, the state has significantly cut the “safety net” in real terms since 2007.

Yet, the amount that Couriers Please pays drivers for deliveries is so low that more than half the drivers surveyed relied on the “safety net” to top up their incomes. Now, Couriers Please is suspending paying the “safety net” for the November-to-December period. They dishonestly claim that drivers don’t need it, because they will make in excess of it in a peak period. If this were actually true they would have no need to axe it! It is the company’s announced axing of the “safety net” that is the biggest cause of drivers’ moves to fight for their rights. Aside from demanding the restoration of the “safety net”, the drivers’ other key demand is for an increase in the payments that drivers receive for deliveries – accounting for the increased prices that Couriers Please are charging their customers for some deliveries. The drivers also demand an end to the punitive OTP system of financial penalties and demand an increase in their oil subsidy. They point out that Couriers Please has actually reduced this oil subsidy even as fuel prices have surged.

Australian Chinese Workers Association Steps Up
to Help Courier Drivers Organise Their Resistance

The existence of a “safety net” for “contract” couriers is the result of the efforts of the Transport Workers Union (TWU). However, the TWU leadership has thus far failed to mobilise the union’s immense industrial muscle to win courier drivers truly decent conditions or to compel companies to employ drivers in secure, wage-paying jobs (as opposed to as “contractors” or “franchisees”). Moreover, at Couriers Please in Sydney in particular, TWU officials have thus far done little to stand by the drivers in recent years. As a result, several of the drivers taking a stand had earlier quit the union after having previously been members. Many of the other rebel drivers never joined the TWU upon hearing from their co-workers of its failure to stand up to the bosses. Recently, when the drivers standing up to the company – now unfortunately mostly non-union members – shared their intention to resist with the TWU delegate at Couriers Please, the latter sought to discourage any struggle by claiming that it would be futile and result in the rebels copping heavy financial penalties. Dismayed, the drivers turned to a community group, the Australian Chinese Workers Association (ACWA) for support. Although the company’s drivers are of various ethnicity, thus far the overwhelming majority of the drivers standing up to the company are immigrants from China. The ACWA is an organisation that links ethnic Chinese workers with the broader Australian workers movement. It also helps Chinese workers defend their legal and social rights against discrimination, while supporting broader progressive causes. Thus the ACWA is an ally of Australian unions and not a competitor. However, on this occasion, it was compelled to step into the void created by the TWU’s indifference to the Couriers Please drivers’ plight and carry out the work that the TWU ought to have been doing.

After receiving an appeal from the drivers, the ACWA carried out surveys of drivers to accurately determine their actual working conditions. They organised drivers to elect an Industrial Action Guidance Group to direct their struggle. The ACWA then helped drivers to assemble a petition of their demands to submit to Couriers Please management.

Protest Stands with the Drivers Fighting for Their Rights

After being contacted by the drivers, the ACWA in turn appealed to ourselves in Trotskyist Platform to organise support for the drivers to coincide with their petition submission and their threat of strike action. So, in the afternoon before the petition was submitted on Wednesday morning, a spirited demonstration was held at very short notice outside Couriers Please’s Western Sydney depot in solidarity with the drivers’ demands. Drivers’ representatives were joined by supporters of Trotskyist Platform, the ACWA and other supporters of workers rights. Chanting, “Support the Drivers, Fighting for Their Rights” and “The Workers United Will Never Be Defeated”, demonstrators carried banners and signs like, “Couriers Please Profits and Oil Prices Are Soaring. Raise Payments and Fuel Subsidies for Drivers!” Tuesday’s action met with overwhelming sympathy from drivers going in and out of the depot. Many either tooted their horns in approval of the rally or waved and gave a thumbs up to the protestors.

This drivers struggle has great significance. Since this is a rare case of gig workers being able to organise resistance to their own exploitation, a victory could inspire resistance from other workers hired on bogus “contractor” arrangements. Trotskyist Platform fights to not only improve the rights of gig workers but stands for the conversion of all gig jobs into secure jobs where workers will be engaged as employees rather than “contractors”. As signs carried by drivers at Tuesday’s rally indicated, it is the aspiration of many Couriers Please drivers themselves to have their jobs converted into secure, wage paying jobs. This is essential to reducing the level of exploitation of those currently engaged in the gig economy and to protecting these workers from the great insecurity of gig work. It is also crucial for another reason. By separating workers and promoting the self-centred, small business-person outlook, the hiring of workers as “contractors” undermines workers unity. It therefore undercuts the struggle to build working-class resistance to capitalist exploitation. The fight to convert gig “contract” jobs into secure, employee jobs is thus an essential part of today’s struggle to build a militant workers movement. The workers movement must demand laws forcing companies who hire any particular individual “contractor” for more than, say, fifteen gigs in a month, or more than fifty jobs in a year, to offer these “contractors” secure, wage-paying jobs as employees of the company.

Turn Our Unions Into Organisations of
Militant Working-Class Resistance!

Tuesday’s rally boosted the morale of the rebelling workers, flung at the bosses a sample of the wider support that the workers struggle will inspire and popularised the struggle amongst other Couriers Please drivers. Another key purpose of Tuesday’s protest was to try and shame the leadership of the TWU into doing what they ought to be doing: standing resolutely with courier drivers against the attacks of the greedy corporate owners.

Although we understand why the drivers standing up to Couriers Please are not part of the TWU, we are nevertheless strongly encouraging them to join the union immediately. Being in the union gives them an opportunity to appeal for support from the union’s ranks – that is from other transport and courier sector workers. This will be especially crucial if the drivers go ahead with strike action. Union truck drivers and other workers are much more likely to respect a picket line of striking courier drivers if they know that the picketers have shown – by paying to join the union – that they are not only willing to stand up for their own rights but to stand in solidarity with other workers in the industry.

However, joining the TWU does not mean that the drivers should submit to the agenda of its pro-ALP, leadership. Drivers should maintain their elected Industrial Action Guidance Group and ensure that this body retains ultimate control over the struggle. Should they join the TWU, the rebel drivers should be ready to regularly send large delegations into the union office in order to pressure TWU officials to mobilise the union’s industrial muscle behind their struggle. To help with such efforts and to win solidarity action in support of their fight, the drivers will need to appeal to the ranks of the TWU (and other unions) that are employed in other companies – especially those working in the highly profitable FHM group of companies (including efm Logistics, BagTrans, Niche Logistics, GKR Transport and Spectrum Transport) that is owned by the same Singapore Post corporation that owns Couriers Please. Given that Couriers Please and FHM form the most lucrative part of Singapore Post’s operations, joint action by workers employed by these companies can put immense pressure on their bosses to accede to workers demands.

However, the pro-ALP union bureaucrats are highly adept at corralling union ranks away from militant struggle strategies. If the militant Couriers Please drivers join the TWU, as we hope, then in the face of the arguments that TWU officials would inevitably throw out to discourage intransigent industrial action, it will be a challenge for the militants to maintain the allegiance of the more wavering drivers who signed the petition, let alone win over broader union ranks. To prevail, the leaders of the struggle will need to be armed with both a very clear understanding of what is wrong with the program of our current union leaders and what is the alternative program that the union movement needs.

The main reason that our current union officials discourage militant industrial action is because they think that while particular practices and bosses need to be resisted, in the “big picture”, workers interests are best served by accepting the overall domination of society by rich capitalists and the regime that serves them. They either argue that this is actually desirable – in the case of more right-wing bureaucrats – or claim that the capitalists are too powerful to challenge. Thus the current union heads seek to limit union struggle to that which is compliant with the restrictive anti-strike laws and industrial courts of the capitalist state. Their main strategy is to elect Labor and then encourage these ALP governments to make as much pro-worker reform as possible without decisively upsetting the powerful capitalists – which isn’t much! Thus, when Labor is in office, like right now in both NSW and federally, union officials are especially reluctant to unleash industrial action. This entire “strategy” of collaboration with the capitalists has been a disastrous failure! Following it, the pro-ALP union tops have allowed business bosses, over the last four decades, to both greatly increase their exploitation of workers and drive a big chunk of the workforce into insecure gig jobs. Still, these officials delude themselves that their strategy is in their ranks’ best interests. This is in good part because by subordinating the workers to the capitalist order, the pro-ALP union tops gain a respected social position within elite circles as loyal-to-the-system “rebels”. Moreover, many union heads are careful to ensure that their actions remain within limits tolerable to the ruling class because they want to leave the door open to future lucrative careers as corporate executives or mainstream politicians (as in the case of long-time TWU secretary and now Labor federal senator Tony Sheldon). 

To ensure that the maximum force is mobilised behind their struggle, the leaders of the Couriers Please drivers struggle and their supporters will need to convince other drivers and sections of the broader working-class that everything significant that the working-class has ever won has been through resolute industrial action and other mass actions. That all bureaucratic organs in capitalist societies – from the police to the courts to the industrial relations commissions – are subordinate to the interests of the capitalist class. This is the case whether the regime is administered by conservative governments or social-democratic Labor Party-type ones. Therefore, contrary to the strategy of pro-ALP union tops, the working-class cannot expect to win significant gains through the benevolence of the capitalist state or its courts no matter which party is in office – the more so in this era of frequent capitalist economic crises. To those who say that workers must limit demands in order to ensure that companies remain highly profitable so that they will not layoff workers, we must say that we must instead fight to improve workers rights across industry so that companies with the worst working conditions cannot undercut other operations. We must explain that the way to fight for jobs is by forcing companies to maintain a greater number of workers than is most profitable for them. And to those who say that such an agenda, in the “big picture”, would cause economic collapse, we must reply that if the ultra-rich corporate bigwigs cannot run their companies in a way that ensures both decent working conditions and jobs for all without collapsing, this only proves the need to eventually rip the economy out of their hands. In short, the fight to mobilise the maximum force behind the Couriers Please drivers struggle must be accompanied by a struggle to promote a new agenda for our workers movement: one that insists that the working-class must not restrict its struggle to what is tolerable by the capitalists but must fight unyieldingly for what it actually needs, on the way to an ultimate “big picture” goal of the collective ownership of the economy by all the people under workers rule.

Immigrants from Mainland China
Energise Australia’s Workers Movement

The Couriers Please drivers struggle is not the first time that immigrants from mainland Peoples Republic of China (PRC) have been at the forefront of workers struggle. In February 2021, largely Chinese immigrant drivers working for British-owned food delivery company Hungry Panda unleashed Australia’s first ever strike by gig workers. Organised in the TWU, their weeks of stopworks and protests won them modest but important gains. In November 2012, 180 bus drivers who were “guest” workers from China waged Singapore’s first strike in 27 years! So why do migrant workers from China, even when on precarious employment arrangements, have a great propensity to struggle? The reason is that in 1949 China had a massive revolution that brought workers to power. To be sure, the complete victory of the working class over the capitalists is still far from complete in China, or even certain, and there remains capitalists of some influence there. Nevertheless, people growing up in the Chinese workers state are immersed with the sense that workers ought to be treated with respect. This is reinforced by the fact that, very opposite to capitalist Australia, PRC courts – and sometimes even police – are known to usually favour workers in disputes with private business owners. So when Chinese workers migrate abroad they bring that workers don’t have to put up with crap spirit with them.

A particular reason that Chinese immigrant gig workers are unwilling to cop extreme exploitation is that they may be aware of the measures that the PRC has taken to defend gig workers’ rights back in China. In July 2021, the PRC decreed new rules compelling food delivery companies to ensure that delivery workers receive at least the local minimum wage, provide their workers social insurance and considerably relax the times that workers have to make a delivery (the latter being equivalent to forcing Couriers Please to greatly weaken its hated OTP system). The measures had such an impact that they caused the rich owners of China’s biggest food delivery platform, Meituan to immediately lose $A56 billion in share value! However, unlike here, where opposition from wealthy corporate owners is able to weaken or postpone any mooted pro-worker measures that would harm their interests, the PRC state went ahead with the new measures and is extending them to other sectors. Therefore, the workers movement must force Australia’s regime to retreat from its role in the Western capitalists’ drive to destroy the PRC workers state and must instead compel it to implement PRC-style anti-poverty measures here – like decreeing guaranteed minimum wages and social insurance for all gig workers.

Some courier drivers are non-citizens. They would be able to struggle even more resolutely if they were not shackled by the restriction of rights that non-citizens face. Moreover, anti-Chinese and other racism intimidates migrant workers and can make them reluctant to stick their heads up. Just four days ago, a Sydney University Chinese student was bashed by an unknown white man screaming racist insults. To unleash the full fighting energy of migrant workers, our workers movement must take action to oppose racist attacks and to demand the rights of citizenship for all migrants.

An Important Struggle to Win

There are literally millions of workers in this country who are hired on a gig basis, on sham “contracts” or on other forms of casual and insecure employment. These intensely exploited workers could be inspired to fight for their rights if they see the Couriers Please drivers struggle succeeding. Therefore, if these courier drivers end up going ahead with industrial action, it is crucial that those who joined Tuesday’s rally – and the many more who could not attend the snap rally but gave it moral support – go into overdrive to build support for the action. Let us build mass picket lines outside the company’s depots to help enforce any strike! Most crucially, we must fight to build secondary solidarity strikes amongst the less vulnerable sections of the working class. This is possible to do. For since the especially severe exploitation of gig workers is used to drive down the wages and conditions of all workers, it is in the interests of the entire working-class to actively support the struggle to improve the rights of gig workers. Let’s make the Couriers Please drivers’ struggle a springboard to launch a broad struggle to convert all gig jobs into secure, wage-paying jobs!