ASU Challenges pay rates at PAL
This week the ASU held members meetings about concerns raised by employees.
Broadly, these concerns regarded lack of training and lack of support to deal with the work that is expected, as well as severe under staffing on busy shifts, leaving employees overworked and exposed to often angry and abusive callers.
During this Covid-19 Pandemic, the community has relied on the hard work of the PAL employees, but despite this, Serco continues to insist that you are only considered ‘Level 1’ employees on the Contract Call Centre Award.
The ASU does not believe the hard work performed by PAL workers is accurately described as “processing basic customer account enquiries” as Level 1 is described in the Contract Call Centre Award. When we have spoken to members, daily tasks performed include:
- Highly detailed and specific crime reports, which requires employees to make a decision about what specific offence has been committed, including an accurate narrative which will be included in Police reports.
- Covid-19 enquiries, which requires staff to have an up to date understanding of the application of the social distancing requirements and public health orders.
- Being able to understand and interpret and knowledge articles and make a determination about which calls are an emergency and need to be transferred to triple zero and which calls can be handled by PAL.
- Whilst Serco insists employees are not required to deal with emergency phone calls, employees are required to triage emergency calls that come through, including getting a name, phone number and location from a caller before transferring through to triple zero. Often these are highly vulnerable and distressed callers, and trying to get this information is not always a simple task.
The ASU believes Serco’s priorities are all wrong. We don’t believe telling employees that their work is entry level on the Award passes community expectations.
The ASU is fighting for change, but we can’t do it alone. We are going to need everyone onboard if Serco PAL employees are going to win the pay and conditions they deserve. If you’re not an ASU member, make sure you join today, and if you are a member, make sure you talk to your co-workers about joining the Union.
You can join at www.asuvic.org or call your Organiser John Weber at jweber@asuspvic.org