Driving Force

At a time when trade unions in Australia are under threat, "Driving Force" provides a reminder of the past failures of an unregulated labour market. Forced to regularly work in excess of 14 hours per day in return for a paltry wage, workers in road transport established their own unions by the 1880s. Once unionized, transport workers played a central role in the Australian labour movement. Quick to realize the industrial potential of road transport unions, Billy Hughes was elected the first President of a Federal Drivers' Union in 1909, hoping to use control of the union to secure his personal domination of the labour movement. While Hughes soon lost control of the Federal Union, the TWU's strategic position continued to place it at the centre of the struggle for control of Australia's trade union movement. "Driving Force" traces the emergence of the TWU as an industrial pacesetter in the 1960s and 1970s, and finishes with a discussion of the current issues faced by the union: enterprise bargaining and rationalization.