Key Points
- Stop sign holders and labourers are set to receive a pay rise under a new workplace agreement.
- Workers and the union say the pay rise reflects the risks they face in traffic.
- One former traffic controller told SBS News workers are often abused and hit by cars.
She shared her industry insights with SBS News.
What does a typical day look like on the job?
“You are not told where you’re working until the day before, usually about four or five o’clock in the afternoon. You could be doing anything from … small 15-minute jobs, or shutting down lanes on the M1.”
Jade Campbell (right) worked as a traffic controller for four years. Source: Supplied / Australian Workers Union
What does the job involve?
“So you have to understand how traffic works, you have to judge the speed of the traffic as well because no one ever does the speed limit. Everyone’s always speeding through a site. It’s scary, to be honest.”
Do you work a lot of odd hours?
“I would work from approximately 7pm for pre-start at the project and we’d have to be off the road by 5am, but by the time you are off the road packed up back to the crib area, it’s usually about 6am.”
Does it ever feel risky or unsafe?
“You get drunk and disorderly people abusing you because you’ve shut down a road; I know many traffic controllers who have been hit by cars; I’ve been nudged by a car while I was on a stop bat on a residential street when I was very new.
“I’ve had friends who have been in a lane closure whose vehicle has been struck by a drunk driver, I’ve lost people from the industry because of the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after being struck either in the back of a TMA (Truck Mounted Attenuator) or on the job, the abuse, everything. We’ve lost about four traffic controllers in as little as three years.”
Do you think this job is misunderstood?
“You look at the comments on all these different pay dispute argument articles that are out there saying that ‘a person holding a stop bat’s getting paid more than this, that the next’ … it’s not as simple as that.
Jade Campbell is now a construction organiser, and described working in traffic control as scary and high-risk.
“It really grinds your gears when people sit there and have this idea that traffic controllers are only used to (hold stop signs) or that they’re undereducated … they are not valued enough.
“They are the only people on the majority of the job sites now who don’t get paid those rates.”
Do you think the new pay deal is reasonable?
“But traffic control is a high-risk job … and they should be paid equivalent to that. Many people have been struck by vehicles (and) killed in the industry.
“It’s pretty dire straits out there when you’re a traffic controller trying to do the right thing. I think that they should get paid for the higher risk of the job.”
What support is available to workers in the industry?
-Some answers have been edited for length and clarity.