The Traffic Control Problem in the NT (Part 2)
Truth Continued
The article posted a few days ago has garnered considerable attention from all layers of the industry, Traffic Truth (TT) has received communication from many people willing to help the cause. The traffic to the articles, which is in the hundreds started as email traffic and is gradually growing into the social media realm. Details to contact us will be at the bottom of the article.
The article also has also caused chafe in the enabler circles, it seems real attention has been brought to the matters and action in some form is taking place, refreshing.
The people are chattering, phone calls are being made, emails are bouncing through cyber pace, former employees of X are sharing to their former colleagues and frantically looking through their payslips, questions of identity are being asked… about Traffic Truth, X’s identity is common knowledge. Perhaps the saddest revelation so far is not that no one knows who X is, but that everyone knows who X is. And Traffic Truth? Well to think of Traffic Truth as a person or as a sole identity is a mistake, TT is a prism in which the frustrations and struggles of X’s victims can be channeled, reflecting light onto the rot in the industry.
Expansion on enablers
There is more than one enabler letting this happen, this problem exists because of systemic enablism, to point all blame towards the TMAA is quite frankly unfair, the reference in the previous article was not intended to shame a particular person but was intended to illustrate the isolation felt by traffic management companies. If the association which bears the name of our very industry won't help us, who will?
Prime Contractors
TT does not wish to turn the hatchet on prime contractors, but their role in the industry is very important, as they are the ones under financial pressure whilst considering traffic management in their operations. This is the part where cheaper options become enticing, but the author thinks this could be compared to buying seafood in Woolworths, sure those prawns from Thailand look the same as the others, and they are even cheaper.. what could go wrong?
Lower prices may be an indicator of an organised company with efficient work practices, but they could also indicate the exploitation of one of the most expensive costs in business: labour. You have to ask the question, would you want your daughter or son standing for 12+ hours in the sun, at the mercy of road users, for barely enough money to scrape by? And if not, are you happy to profit off the same thing?
Yes I'm aware, if you don't take the cheap option your competitors still will, and you will have to make it up somewhere else in your tendering, any of us who have used X’s services and ignored the exploitation are complicit in this, but rather than procrastinate on standing up to this we have to ask ourselves:
If not us then who?
If not now then when?
Even if you aren’t interested in the greater good of our industry consider the risk you are putting your business at. At this point, everyone is likely fully aware that the buck doesn’t stop at the traffic management company when it comes to liability for an accident, if you click here you will find the inquest into the death on Tiger Brennan Drive.
ATTENTION IF THERE IS ANYWHERE IN THE ARTICLE YOU MUST ABSORB IT IS THE INFORMATION BELOW.
Your exposure to liability from a traffic subcontractor does not only exist in matters of safety. This article written by a prominent Australian law firm outlines the risks associated with hiring subcontractors who may be paying below the award wage. If the relevance of this article doesn’t give you the goosebumps, nothing will. It references a speech released by fair work which can be read here. Read this content and read it again.
“Another common feature of these cases was that the workers were migrants on various forms of temporary visas, who were less likely to complain because of their precarious visa status.”
We are contactable at traffictruth@protonmail.com
To be continued…
