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# Largest strike of road transport workers in decades demands better pay and conditions
- URL: https://redflag.org.au/article/largest-strike-of-road-transport-workers-in-decades-demands-better-pay-and-conditions/
- Published: 2026-09-18T08:25:16.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-18T08:25:16.000Z
- Author: Nick Reich
- Tags: Unions and Workers, Activism and Reports, Victoria

The chants of several hundred striking truck drivers boomed from the steps of Victorian Trades Hall on the morning of 10 September: “When we fight, we win!”

The fight involves several workplaces around the country that united for a 24-hour strike. In Victoria, workers at FedEx, Border Express, K&S Chemtrans, Sadleirs and Qube all voted to take simultaneous action. Nationally, more than 5,000 workers walked off the job. The Transport Workers Union (TWU) officials claim that this strike is the largest road transport strike in Australian history.

Despite working for different companies, the issues striking truckers face are almost identical. Low wages, lack of job security and increasing pressures to do unsafe work. Across the industry, new companies increasingly undercut established, unionised companies by underpaying drivers and forcing them into higher-volume, unsafe work patterns. Road transport is no less essential than it was 30 years ago for the delivery of our food, fuel, medical supplies and other essentials, but over that time, the people driving the trucks have seen their wages go backwards and their working conditions become increasingly unsafe.

Colin, a driver for K&S Chemtrans, told me at the strike rally that over the twenty years he has been driving, “the industry has become much more competitive. We used to rank number one in dangerous goods delivery, but now we’re total rubbish”. K&S has gone through multiple sales and restructures during Colin’s time there. “We don’t cart milk and honey, you know. What we move is dangerous, toxic, and sometimes carcinogenic. And still our dangerous goods allowance is below the award!”

Workers started the bargaining process with K&S last July, asking for a substantial above-inflation pay rise, among other things. After a year of slow-moving negotiations, the company offered a 15.5 percent pay rise over three years, with no back pay for the year of negotiation. Workers were rightly insulted by this offer, since it would only barely edge above inflation and do nothing to close the gap of almost $15 an hour between K&S drivers and those doing the same work at Toll. Due to the resulting anger, union membership at Colin’s site in Truganina has climbed to around 97 percent.

At FedEx, it is a similar story. Negotiations there have been dragging on for months, with the company offering the workers an insulting pay rise of less than 11 percent over three years. As previously [reported](https://redflag.org.au/article/fed-up-with-fedex/), the use of direct service contracts on piece rates to undermine employed drivers is a big issue. I asked one driver about what, if any, tactics the FedEx bosses had used to pressure workers into accepting their offer; he responded:

“What haven’t they done! They’ve illegally disadvantaged workers by cancelling their weekend work; they’ve responded to our 24-hour strike by locking us out for another 24 hours; they’ve even talked about shutting-up shop in Australia and leaving us all out of a job. Plus, they had yard meetings and toolbox meetings almost every day last week to try and pressure workers into voting up their shit agreement.”

Even with these bullying tactics, FedEx workers voted down the same agreement twice, although by a slimmer margin on the second vote. One driver explained the union culture: “Us old drivers, the ones who were around when the company was still TNT, we’re the core of the union. It’s in our blood. For us, once you go union, you’re union for life”. It is a staunch sentiment, but it also implies a concern about younger drivers joining the company who aren’t yet “union for life” and are more likely to accept worse conditions.

Another FedEx driver, who had been in the union for 40 years, chimed in: “When I first started, everyone was union. And we’d strike for our rights all the time. We’d have a 24-hour strike if there wasn’t enough sugar for our tea!” That sort of unionism is what the bosses of FedEx, and every other transport company, want to extinguish. He went on, “We had to fight for our conditions, and now the young folk are going to have to step up and draw a line before they take it all away”.

While the 10 September strike was the largest in some decades, it involved only a relatively small section of the union’s membership. It did not include the union’s best organised workforces in big companies like Linfox, Toll and Team Global Express, for example. Most of them recently signed deals locking in wage rises just below the current rate of inflation for the next three years. This undermines the demands for real wage rises in current negotiations.

Large strikes are not unheard of in the transport industry. In his history of the TWU, labour historian Bradley Bowden recounts many instances of huge strike campaigns during the last century. In 1981, for example, the TWU leadership called for a national general strike by all 50,000 members to push for a $20 wage rise. Three state governments declared states of emergency and the federal government attempted to deregister the union, but the union held firm. Workers even halted fuel supplies for a day in the second week of the strike. That strike came after decades of rising working-class militancy, so it would not be easy to replicate today. But it shows what’s possible, and the sort of action that can win.

There is some space for a revival of militancy. According to a recent report by NatRoad, the national road transport association, 47 percent of truck drivers are 55 years or older, meaning workers in the industry who experienced the big strikes of the 1970s and 80s are approaching retirement. In their report, NatRoad expressed concerns about potential labour shortages as the workforce doesn’t replenish those retiring drivers. They’re concerned that the resulting labour shortage will put workers in a much stronger position to ask for more. But, even in those circumstances, the bosses are getting away with pushing down truck drivers’ pay and conditions.

That’s why it was so heartening to see many first-time strikers on 10 September. One rally speaker said Qube workers were taking their first strike action in 25 years. The speaker then asked those in the crowd to raise their hand if this was their first strike. A sea of hands went up.

As one speaker said, “Industrial power is like a muscle: the more you use it, the stronger it gets”. This is true, but not all strikes win, and if you lose without putting everything into the fight, demoralisation can set in. So, 10 September may not have been the largest road transport strike in the history of the TWU, but something of that scale is definitely needed.