Transport workers across a number of delivery companies are planning to strike on Thursday this week in a push for better job security protections ahead of the impending Christmas rush.

Workers at StarTrack, FedEx and BevChain have said they will take industrial action this week in order to force changes to their working conditions, such as caps on outsourcing, improved consultation rights, as well as higher pay and super.

Similar action at other transport providers Linfox, Global Express, ACFS and Ceva resulted in “significant movement” in these spaces, but negotiations with StarTrack, BevChain and FedEx have not been reached.

TWU national secretary Michael Kaine said the transport companies are “deliberately playing games with workers’ lives”.

“As good deals are reached locking in strong job security clauses and fair pay and super increases across major transport operators, StarTrack and FedEx are exposed as outliers with their attacks on workers and trying to profit off the pandemic,” Kaine said.

“On the one hand you have a government-owned company which has deliberately delayed reaching an agreement to swindle workers for as long as possible [and] on the other, an international union-busting juggernaut.

“Based on performance, these companies should have been the first to provide job security guarantees… instead they have pushed workers to the brink with no choice but to pursue legal industrial action to break the impasse before the Christmas surge in demand.”