Can you believe that there are workers who basically live on the Spirit of Tasmania ferries? And who are not employees of operator TT-Line, but simply caught between earning a living and a hard place?
Welcome to modern slavery, Tasmanian style.
I talked to Rico* and he outlined his schedule to me. He and his team were unpacking a sofa delivered to my suburban property in Hobart.
“It’s always the same,” he said, heavily. He looked, frankly, exhausted, like an afterthought in a uniform.
I remembered his story some time later as I made my own crossing on the Spirit. Perhaps Rico, and many like him, were on board the same ship, rocked to oblivion by the same Bass Strait swell.
“On Monday about midday we go to the Melbourne depot and load up. Furniture,” he explained. “We drive to Geelong and board the night ferry.”
“Tuesday, Devonport area deliveries. We end up in Hobart by nightfall and we stay there.”
“On Wednesday we make Hobart deliveries, including to the company warehouse, then drive back to Devonport. We take the night ferry.”
“On Thursday we go to the depot again in the western suburbs of Melbourne, then back to Geelong, and we take the night ferry.”
“Friday, Launceston deliveries in the morning. Maybe some Hobart deliveries that have been booked for the afternoon. The booking delivery service of the company looks like it can offer any day of the week but in reality, in Hobart, it’s only Wednesday morning or Friday afternoon. Everything else is ‘booked out’. It’s fake.”
“We stay in a hotel in Hobart on Friday night. Then on Saturday we report to the warehouse in Hobart, before driving back to Devonport and taking the night ferry.”
“On Sunday I arrive in Geelong and can ‘go home’ for 24 hours.
I don’t have a home. Not a real one. I pay a friend $25 a week to spend Sunday night on his couch in Werribee.”
After counting up, incredulously, I find that Rico spends Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday in a cabin on the Spirit of Tasmania, Tuesday and Friday in a hotel in Hobart, then Sunday on a couch as described above. He confirmed that summary as correct.
I asked him if he likes going on the big boat. Or travelling.
“I used to, at first,” he said. “Now … I hate it. It’s too much. It’s not a life. It’s like I’m in a prison. Those (Spirit of Tasmania) cabins are my cell.”
It felt like there was more there. More to, ahem, unpack.
“Well, I can’t have … anything really,” Rico continued. “I can’t have a girlfriend. I can’t play sport regularly. I can’t go to temple. I can’t go for dinner with friends I studied with. Or our community festivals. I don’t cook, I eat junk. I can’t plan very far ahead. This life … it’s not anything really.”
He revealed that he has been doing this for over two years already. After he finished his study in Australia – a degree in Engineering – he and a friend formed a transport company.
They expected to be moving goods mainly between importers’ warehouses and ethnic groceries across Melbourne.
When the contract came up for a national chain of furniture stores to undertake their twice weekly distribution to Tasmania, his company made a bid.
They were successful. With the contract in place, they leased a truck.
But success is just a word, more than a number or even a feeling. Success becomes a dry meal of obligations, loaded in favour of the big chain and against the transport provider.
“It’s … I can’t even explain,” he said. “If we don’t do it, someone else will.”
“There’s enough money to pay the truck, the expenses, the ferry, the hotels, all that. But not much more. Hardly anything … we are not getting rich.”
“I can handle it, but if I get sick, I have to hire a casual assistant. Then there’s no profit anymore.”
I looked away, as if the pile of sofa packaging on my lawn to be dealt with was some kind of penance.
“I don’t earn enough money to start some other kind of business. And in this one I don’t have much of a life. So what would you do?” Rico asked me.
A good question for all of us.
We the Comfortable Stay-At-Homes, with food, clothes, packages, furniture and more all delivered to our door as if by magic. The modern magic of supply chains we can mostly ignore.
What. Would. You. Do?
*not his real name
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