United Voice News
Commuters may get 'free rides' after train staff vote to take industrial action
MSS Revenue Protection Officers who check tickets and issue fines on the trains in Perth have voted overwhelmingly in favour of taking industrial action.
The industrial action will include a four hour work stoppage at some point next week, which could mean thousands of commuters are able to use the train network for free at this time. Work bans will also be a part of the industrial action at a later date.
The latest negotiations meeting with MSS saw the security firm refuse to move on its current pay offer of Fair Work Australia’s minimum wage increase of $26 per week, which the workers would get anyway, plus only 1.4% on top of that.
For the following two years they have offered the workers 3%. But if the minimum wage rises again next year at the same rate as this year, MSS’s offer will see the workers go backwards because they are not paid the correct penalty rates for working in the evenings, at weekends and on public holidays.
The only improvement in MSS’s new offer to the revenue protection officers comes in some minor changes to conditions.
The officers are looking for 12% over two years, with the correct penalty rates, 18 months back pay and specific training to help them deal with aggressive customers.
Carolyn Smith, assistant secretary of the LHMU said: “This vote sends a message loud and clear to MSS that these workers are fed up with being messed around for so long.
Expensive work stoppage
“The MSS calls our members’ claims unrealistic but these workers haven’t had a pay rise for two years. We also struggled for nine months to even get MSS to the negotiating table.
“In fact we had to take them to Fair Work Australia to get them to sit down at the negotiating table with us.
“If MSS want to avoid a very expensive work stoppage for the Perth Transit Authority, they better start getting serious in negotiations and stop making offers which will effectively see our members going backwards financially.
“Working on the trains and stations as a revenue protection officer is not an easy job. Our members tell us they are regularly verbally abused, spat on and even violently attacked by customers.
“And as living costs rise relentlessly in the state, it’s pretty astonishing this employer expects the workers to be satisfied with their offer.”
Details of next week’s work stoppage will be finalised after consultation with Fair Work Australia.
