The initiative by the Australian Trucking Association to bring Transport Women Australia into the fold as a member of the organisation should be the first step in the process of giving women a voice in transport.
The inclusion of TWAL was announced this week and framed by Mark Parry as being part of the drive to get more women involved in the industry, transforming the culture and practices in trucking to make it more accessible to the other fifty per cent of society.
The fact of the matter is, there has always been a group of strong women involved as movers and shakers in the trucking world in Australia. Two of the ATA chairpersons over past thirty or so years have been female, there are influential women all over the place in the industry.
The issue is not those already involved in the industry and kicking goals, it’s getting young women involved in the first place, in significant enough numbers to move dial on the drastic shortages of people and the continuing rise in the average age of people working in trucking.
TWAL has done a great job over the years of developing a network of those involved in the industry, to forward the kinds of ideas needed to make the industry more amenable to all genders and to give voice to their concerns.
While this is a good positive forward step for the ATA and its other member organisations, it is not going to be any kind of magic bullet. It’s going to take a lot more work, more women’s groups coming into the fold, plus some fresh ideas to start to make the industry more attractive to females.
As males, most of us in the industry don’t recognise the aspects of the culture within trucking which make it difficult to recruit from the whole population out there looking for a career. This is the discussion which needs to be had in the next few years.
Males are the ones who predominate, and therefore it is their task to make the changes. The first aspect which needs investigation is the overall look and feel of the industry, the culture and appearance. It is down to the existing majority to look at themselves and then look at their industry from someone else’s point of view. That’s how change will be made, when the majority wake up to the problem.
Yes, we have made the first step in giving women a voice in transport. Now we have to actually make real change to ensure the future viability of our industry.
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