Industrial disputes & news - 17 April 2024
Adelaide trains; Transgrid; NSW child protection workers; Ambulance Victoria; Airservices Australia; Electrolux Adelaide; Victorian nurses & midwives; WA teachers; Searod; RSV Nuyina
RTBU - Keolis Downer (Adelaide Trains)
After having withdrawn earlier industrial action, Adelaide train drivers have reached their limit with private contractor Keolis Downer and taken industrial action. Train drivers walked off the job for 4 hours on Thursday (11/4), for two hours in the morning peak yesterday (16/4) and are scheduled to strike for two hours in this afternoon’s peak (17/4). Workers have been in negotiations for 6 months and are seeking 20% in pay increases over 4 years.
ETU NSW - Transgrid
Workers at Transgrid struck for 24 hours on Friday (12/4) in their ongoing campaign for a fair deal to keep up with the cost of living. Workers are fighting for 6.5% annual wage increases and improvement to superannuation and other conditions.
PSA NSW - Child Protection Workers
Child protection workers will participate in rolling stopwork meetings over the next three weeks as part of a campaign about the crisis in the sector. Workers are calling on the state government to fix understaffing and retention by providing better pay incentives, and to recruit an additional 500 caseworkers. They are also campaigning for foster care to be put back in the public sector after being privatised.
VAU/UWU - Ambulance Victoria
Industrial action at Ambulance Victoria continues both for paramedics and fleet maintenance officers and administrative staff.
UFU - Airservices Australia
Industrial action that was due to take place on Monday by federal aviation firefighters was called off after an in-principle agreement was reached between UFU and Airservices Australia late last week. No details are available at this stage, but with a breakthrough coming before any industrial action took place it does make one wonder if the firires will be getting more than the 11.2% other federal public servants have agreed to… The deal has also not yet been endorsed by workers.
AMWU SA - Electrolux Adelaide
Workers at Adelaide’s Electrolux factory walked off the job on Friday (12/4). They have been in negotiations since August, and haven’t had a payrise since November 2022. Workers have now voted down two subpar company agreements which as well as not provided adequate wage increases would also allow the boss to pick when workers could take leave. Time for Electrolux to come to the table with a fair deal.
ANMF Victoria - Public sector nurses and midwives
The ANMF ballot for protected action opens today at 9am and will close on 29 April. More details on the ballot are available in the most recent member update.
SSTUWA - WA Public school teachers
Teachers in WA have rejected a second government offer. It is now highly likely the SSTUWA will undertake a half day strike on April 23. The government offered pay increases of 11% over three years (5%, 3%, 3%). The SSTUWA demand was 7% in the first year and 5% in the second - 12% over two years. The unions’ demands also include action on workload and restrictions on class sizes.
MUA Vic - Searoad
Workers at Searoad in Victoria are fighting back against the sacking of a delegate while he was off on workers compensation with mental health concerns. The union is running a campaign for the reinstatement of their delegate. Workers at Searoad also unanimously endorsed their EBA log of claims this week.
AIMPE & AMOU - APSC/Serco
Industrial action on the Antacrtic icebreaker RSV Nuyina continues. Workers are refusing to load or offload cargo, run the ship’s propulsion system or refuel the ship. Reports claim that Serco’s attempts to reduce workers pay during the dispute has, unsurprisingly, “hardened their resolve”.
Remember - blame the bosses, not the workers
A big boo hiss and a giant SHAME to the loser who graff’d a train in Adelaide with “Fuck your payrise. Drive the train rat.” I cannot stress how much this disgusting anti-worker display pissed me off. If you’ve got an issue with trains being cancelled due to industrial action, take it up with Julien Dehornoy the CEO of Keolis Downer, not the hard working train drivers who get you where you need to go every other day of the year.
That’s all I’ve got this week! Please feel free to send a message or leave a comment if you know of a dispute I’ve missed - there’s always so much going on and I invariably miss stuff.
In solidarity, Sarah