Travellers could face delays and disruptions at Perth Airport on Friday morning, with aviation screening officers planning to walk off the job.<\/p>\n
The United Workers Union issued a warning late on Thursday that members would power down their screening machines at security checkpoints at all four Perth Airport terminals for an hour on Friday \u2014 the last day of school holidays.<\/p>\n
Industrial action is expected to ramp up further in the coming weeks, with more workers to down tools on Monday morning.<\/p>\n
The UWU claimed its Perth members were paid much less than their counterparts at airports in other States for the same jobs contracted out by the same company, ISS.<\/p>\n
They were also unhappy about a rostering system that meant some workers had to leave home at 2am to work a four-hour shift.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Perth Airport said it was aware of planned industrial action by members of the UWU within the terminal precinct.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe action relates to ongoing negotiations regarding ISS Perth Aviation Security Enterprise Agreement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPerth Airport is working closely with ISS to minimise any disruption to passengers and airport operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe safety and security of passengers, staff and visitors remain Perth Airport\u2019s highest priority. There will be no impact to aviation security operations as a result of the industrial action.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aviation Screening Officers screen passengers and luggage to keep dangerous items off planes. They also screen freight and guard the airport perimeters and runways.<\/p>\n
UWU official Carl Ratana said aviation screening officers played an important role in keeping the public safe.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are the people who keep bombs and guns off planes,\u201d he said. \u201cDo we really want these people stressed, miserable, hating their jobs?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is exactly the same job as Brisbane and Melbourne. Yet workers here are paid between 13 and 19 per cent less.\u201d<\/p>\n
ISS Australia has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Travellers could face delays and disruptions at Perth Airport on Friday morning, with aviation screening officers planning to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[11630,323,152,335,224,464],"class_list":["post-51883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-perth","tag-aviation","tag-business","tag-news","tag-perth","tag-travel","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}