Bus drivers resist split shifts
PERTH — Drivers employed by Southern Coast Transit (SCT) walked of the job for six days beginning July 9. The drivers, members of the Transport Workers Union (TWU), were resisting attempts by management to force them to work more erratic hours.
SCT provides services to Transperth in Perth's southern suburbs, Rockingham and Mandurah. Before the dispute, drivers worked seven-and-a-half-hour shifts. SCT wanted shifts varying from four to 10 hours, as well as split shifts, in which drivers have a long unpaid break in the middle of the day so drivers work both the morning and afternoon peak periods.
Drivers picketed their depots and on the fourth day the Industrial Relations Commission ordered them back to work "in the public interest". Despite the threat of fines, drivers maintained their picket lines for another two days.
SCT management was forced to the negotiating table and dropped its demands, agreeing instead to six-hour minimum shifts. This compromise was endorsed by the TWU leadership and agreed to by drivers at a mass meeting on July 14.
WA MUA hits ground running
PERTH — The new leadership team of the Western Australian branch of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) has had its hands full defending members conditions and safety.
During recent stormy weather in Fremantle, wind sirens on a number of wharf cranes failed to activate. The functioning of the sirens is the responsibility of the Fremantle Port Authority (FPA).
It also came to the attention of the union that the FPA has contracted labour hire firms to trim ships at Kwinana. The labour hire workers have been employed at inferior pay rates for work traditionally done by MUA members. MUA members have even been asked to train the labour hire workers to operate cranes. Apparently, some of the previous MUA branch officials knew of and accepted this practice.
Recently elected MUA branch secretary Chris Cain made it clear that he will not tolerate the union's members being used to train themselves out of a job. The FPA has stopped the practice while it negotiates this and other matters with the union. A mass meeting of FPA employees will discuss the matter later this month.
From Green Left Weekly, July 23, 2003.
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