GUARDS outside Bendigo defence manufacturer Thales say they’ll continue to strike over unfair pay conditions if their employer ignores their pleas for penalty rates.
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Four guards have gone on strike this week outside the manufacturing plant where military Hawkei prototype vehicles are made.
The strike has continued each day since Wednesday and guards in Bendigo say they’re prepared to continue the rolling stoppages.
It comes as 150 guards working for security company MSS began striking for 72 hours at a number of sites across Victoria.
One Thales guard, Peter, who did not want his surname used, said changes to overtime had led him to strike.
“MSS are a massive company but they don’t want to pay us overtime. I’ve worked here since 2010 and there’s been zero pay rise. They wanted us to agree to a 3.8 per cent increase over four years but it’s less than inflation. It’s not fair,” he said.
The union representing the guards, United Voice, said MSS refused to follow the rest of the security industry and pay its employees fairly.
“MSS guards are now dangerously close to the poverty line,” United Voice state secretary Jess Walsh said. “Guards who work for MSS have not had a pay rise since the middle of 2010 and they have been trying to resolve this dispute for a year now. But MSS refuses to follow the rest of the security industry and pay them fairly.”
Peter said some of the guards at Thales had been there for 10 years and were now prepared to walk off the job if it didn’t get improve.
“We don’t want to upset Thales, it’s MSS that have treated their employees like this. We’re already low-paid. We do patrols all night, every hour we’ve got certain things we have to check constantly. We don’t feel appreciated at all by this company.”
A spokesperson from MSS declined to comment.
