WA Freight Pay Talks Deliver Extra Bonuses

• General News
• 16th May 2014

20 employees shared in back-pay totalling $74,221

When we began pay talks with WA Freight back in July the company was up for sale and the future was looking a bit shaky for our members.

However, the Kewdale heavy haulage operation has since been taken off the market and things have settled down.

In any case we soldiered on with the EBA negotiations and managed to achieve quite a lot along the way.

In fact it was a very worthwhile exercise.

On my first reading of the existing agreement I found that PM shift employees were not being paid their correct afternoon/night shift loading.

And they were not being paid their paid 20 minute crib break.

Our first priority was to fix those matters and we did.

As a result of our efforts 20 employees shared in back-pay totalling $74,221 - including unpaid super of $6,000 plus.

When we began bargaining Wade Jolly was handling things for the company but he pulled the pin and his chair was filled by John Dunn.

We eventually settled on a three-year deal with 3% annual pay rises - or CPI if it is higher.

WA Freight also agreed to pay a 20%PM shift loading. It had been paying around 12%

WA Freight has different rostering arrangements and we had problems with the way people were being paid

From now on employees will be paid a minimum 38 hour week and any hours after 7.6 daily will be paid at time-anda-half.

For the AM shift people we have improved their RDO arrangements

The new system lets them accrue five days a year to take with their Annual Leave - effectively giving them five weeks.

And eight additional days that can be taken during operational downturns, or on a regular roster system, or by mutual agreement.

The talks were a hard slog but our efforts paid off handsomely.