TWU members working for global security giant G4S are standing up and fighting back against management’s unfair and unacceptable EA offer, cuts to penalty rates and sub-standard conditions.
In striking for 24 hours last Friday these staunch members sent a powerful message to management that full-time workers in Australia deserve a living wage. Overtime bans began yesterday.
The strike involved 50 G4S employees – half of all Melbourne prison transfer workers – and affected the transfer of prisoners from maximum security prisons, youth justice centres, police station pick-ups and court transfers.
TWU (VIC/TAS Branch) Secretary John Berger said what is occurring at G4S – an international corporation who made a $650 million profit last year – is just another sad example of a rich company taking advantage of our broken industrial rules at the expense of workers.
G4S workers are paid a flat rate of $26/hour and most do not receive a truck allowance and annual leave loading.
The company can afford to pay its workers fairly but it is choosing not to do so. And, let’s not forget, G4S profit directly from Victorian Government contracts and its workers perform a vital community service in difficult conditions.
Negotiations for a new EA began last October and the company have so far refused to make an acceptable offer with fair improvements.
If the company continues to refuse to agree to improvements then workers will be given no choice but to take further industrial action including indefinite strikes.
