Couriers Identified As Principal Contractor

By CCH

Couriers Please went to considerable lengths to avoid being identified as a principal contractor.

The Transport Workers Union (TWU) wanted the NSWIRC to direct the company to negotiate with the union in a conference. Couriers Please tried to categorise its contract arrangements as administrative and facilitative only and thus they were outside the terms of the General Carriers Contract Determination. The Commission found that Couriers Please acted to assist individual couriers by co-ordinating services, retained a central customer database, a central message service, allowed contractors to use depots and sub-depots and facilitated the distribution of moneys to contractors. It arranged assistance with the sale of a contractor's business, insurance, bulk-purchasing services, the preparation and distribution of a business operations manual. Vehicles and uniforms bore the company logo. The Commission concluded that if it waddles like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.

(CCH Industrial Law News; issue 10, October 2002)