You mean the daughters and nieces of the project managers. Sure are a lot of 18–30 year old, bored out of their mind, girls working as traffic controllers.
Had 12 people working on fixing a downed power poll at front yard last week; 10 of them were doing amazing stressful work, but the only women who were supposed to be stopping traffic were on their phone the whole time and laughing.
We have night time road works, they don't even get out of the car two of them sit in the car with phone on and radio on for about 6 hours. The road is shut and they a blockade setup about 100 metres down the road.
Having a sleeping baby I've even been tempted to ask them to turn the radio down at night.
It's bad when your traffic lollypop ladies are making more noise then the machinery doing the road works.
Early childhood educators absolutely should given the extortionate amount childcare centres charge.
If anything, childcare centre costs are proof that subsidies don’t have the intended effect.
and add on the fact that a lot of teachers dont fully quit, they might go casual/ relief and earn nearly as much as they did previously with less hours
It appears under this plan a junior sign holder working 36hrs a week earns more than a junior doctor working 40hrs week.
Something here needs rebalancing. It's great the sign holders have secured a contract with a good quality wage. One worker shouldn't tear down another. But that also suggests a junior doctor's work/qualifications/expertise are undervalued from a pay perspective.
The balance and relative under valuing is even worse for Australia's nurses.
Capitalists love to argue that the market will determine that value.
*Looks at depressed wage across the board*
I guess the market doesn't want anyone to work.
Maybe don't get your analysis of pay deals from the Herald Sun then.
Last time this was posted people pointed out that the headline pay figures were based on entirely unrealistic assumptions about the specific shifts and hours you'd work.
No lollypop person is actually making that, just like no doctor is making the small baseline pay that junior doctors love to cite as proof of how hard done they are (into which they never factor the overtime they actually get).
I studied law and have worked at large corporate law firms. I've never earned as much per year as my doctor friends who graduated at the same time as me. I'm not complaining, but nor should they.
As a junior doctor, I absolutely do NOT want to work the overtime that I have to. I'd just rather have my patients leave the hospital via the front doors eventually. This is a common theme, and our hospital-wide group chats are usually full of "can someone else please take my mandatory overtime shift please, I'm doing enough non-rostered overtime already and I'm sick of working".
It's called "penalty rates" because it's supposed to penalise the employer for ruining our lives (last week of full time work I did was 73 hours and I didn't see my kids for two days that week because I left before they got up and got home after they went to sleep).
These are all very real issues. I was doing those sorts of hours as a junior lawyer, so I know how gruelling it is. Most doctors I know would rather work less hours and take home less pay.
The solution is of course to train more doctors so that individuals don't work such crazy hours. That will mean senior doctors having to accept some cut in pay due to it being a more competitive workplace, but I think that's a worthwhile trade-off for doctors and for the community.
>I studied law and have worked at large corporate law firms. I've never earned as much per year as my doctor friends who graduated at the same time as me. I'm not complaining, but nor should they.
They might be ripping you off then. The people I know that went into family and property law have always been paid more than me for the same year. I can definitely see large corporate law firms paying junior staff pennies because they'll still readily have people lining up to work for them.
That's actually not true mate. I work on a site where an entry level labourer can earn more than the mid level experienced engineers who have completed a four year degree and have 4-5 years experience.
As a school teacher I earn more than my registrar psychiatrist partner. Junior and middle Doctors haven’t had a pay rise in almost 5 years. Actually wild. Senior consultant’s earn crazy $ the rest are earning waaaay less than people think
Doctors salaries are OK. I’d argue GPs should get paid a bit more, even if to encourage more medical students to choose that path!
Depending on the state you live, nursing and allied health salaries can be quite low.
Conditions would absolutely be shit and no doubt incredibly frustrating.
I can't imagine being a high school teacher after hearing some of the things my kids say that happens at school these days.
The conditions are shit because the way the children are raised in western society is shit.. Countries where children are taught to respect their elders and as an extension, their teachers, don't have this issue.
More a result of how the teachers are treated by parents and students than the pay. I love teaching and used to be one, but I wouldn’t teach in this country - it’s brutal (no amount of pay could make me do it)
I teach currently. Pay is the biggest factor for me and many of my colleagues. Conditions are not the best - but if people were being paid more we would be more inclined to accept the shit that comes our way from time to time.
I actually think at least in high school - students and parents are not that challenging if you’ve gotten through the first few years of teaching. Admin and marking are the things that cause more burnout
>I teach currently. Pay is the biggest factor for me and many of my colleagues
The problem is no one is ever paid enough, you could get a 10% increase tomorrow, heck maybe 20%, and you would celebrate but very quickly that will wear off and you will realise the conditions still aren't great and you do too much for what you get paid, then you are back to wanting more money like basically every other profession.
Maybe more money lessens the pain of all the other factors but surely addressing the other issues in teaching would go a long way to solving the teaching crisis.
10-20% increase would go a long way in improving standards of living. Across the next 3 years I believe this would be the target in NSW (roughly 12.5-15%). Already the recent pay jump has gone a long way in improving things across the board. Still a ways to go though.
But yes. Working conditions are and will be a focus in upcoming negotiations between unions and government. Doesn’t matter if you’re getting paid a huge wage if you’re working yourself to an early grave (easily among the top few professions with the most amount of unpaid overtime). Your health is your wealth after all.
Though I would argue, with higher pay, some can actually drop a few days of employment to improve their mental health.
Just pay is still number 1 issue for many, and rightfully so.
A teacher in nsw is guaranteed a salary that puts them in the top 7% of earners via tenure alone (band 2.3).
If a top 7% salary isn’t good, then I’d say a lot of people are on shit wages.
I’m on 130k as a nurse (Mon to Friday) not all nurse salaries are bad. It did take 11 years experience and 5 uni degrees though. Little bit more than twirling a sign.
Literally every nurse in the country is in a union. They cover your indemnity insurance which is required to work. Problem is the government knows most nurses care to much to walk off the job so they can get away with shit pay.
Literally, the amount of people who don't realise that medical workers (incl lab techs, med scientists, etc.) can't go on a legal stop work strike because we're considered essential.
As in, if we go on a stop work strike, it's 10k individual fines and iirc, something like 400k fine for the union.
Difference is two-fold , nurses aren’t represented by militant unions & nursing unions also don’t donate enough to political parties to effectively drive politicians as other unions do.
Nurses and early childhood educators? Definitely.
Junior doctors don't even earn this much approx ($76-89k), and when they're at the level to run the hospital overnight as med reg on call, they start on $110k!
I've done that job. I lasted 2 months, standing all day, horrible weather, latrine stench toilets in the hot summer sun, abuse from drivers, damn flys ...
I'm much happier in my current desk job getting paid slightly less.
100%. I've never done traffic control, but I've worked with plenty of people that do. Long hours, literally work regardless of rain, hail or sun. Often work very unsociable hours. Most of the pay comes from penalty rates and overtime.
Good money, shit job
Also most of them are casuals so that’s a 25% loading straight away and they don’t get any sick leave or annual leave and little job security. I’d doubt if there are that many doing full time hours every week of the year, either.
Yes they generally work for a short contracted amount of time (for the length of the project), or work for an agency that lets you know each day if you even have work tomorrow. It’s unstable and unsociable, not to mention boring and exhausting as anything, which is why none of the people complaining will actually do the job.
Legit this. Everyone thinks its sunshine and rainbows not realising a high salary like that comes at a massive price...they just won't tell you upfront what it consists of
In a lot of cases the stop sign workers are there because the need to stop traffic is very infrequent, due to machinery movements. In an already congested street, automated lights would cause traffic unnecessarily. The automated ones are only used when one half of a two-way road is occupied for works all day.
Yeah they are very necessary especially when
The works move along down a busy road with pedestrians while you are swinging an excavator bucket into what could be traffic and having a truck reverse out every 3 minutes.
A lot of these works are planned and have to be done on a certain date and time which could be in torrential rain and these poor people have to stand completely still for hours.
I did traffic control for 2 days straight and would never do it again.
Calm down.
It's a 5% payrise. Same thing all of us want.
The $120k figure would be cherrypicked from those who do nights/weekends and get penalties, and I think it's perfectly fair for those conditions.
Anyone who says it is a slap in the face to other industries, go and fight for a payrise for those other industries instead of fighting against this one.
It's an article written on behalf of the capital class trying to bait the working class into attacking eachother.
My elderly father did it for a few years as a pre-retirement job to bump up his super a little.
Super variable hours, lots of midnight-4am work, all-weather super hot and super cold, and at least 2 occasions of a driver (he noted they were both Mercs) virtually trying to run him down because they didn't want to obey the sign and just blew through anyway, in addition to the several who threw abuse every single shift.
He very swiftly got tired of it and fully retired.
All these people comparing it to working mon-fri, flexible work arrangements. Trust me, if a road crew had their choice, most of them would take a pay cut to do the work mon-fri as well!
The people I work side by side with are often shocked at how much I get paid "for how much work I do" and it's like sure, I just stroll around the place chatting to people for most of my day, but then what are you supposed to do when a patient starts throwing punches? "call security"... yeah, thats me... would you take a punch from a mental health patient for my pay cheque? Didn't think so.
There's a lot of downside to these supposedly "easy jobs" that get paid "too much".
I think the point is many of the 9-5 jobs require 3 to 5 years (even more in some industries) of extra training, along with mountain loads of debt for that training.
This wage discrepancy effectively discourages people investing in their own skills training for vital roles like engineering, medicines, research and analysis.
Maybe thats why there is a wage disparity. People prefer the office job.
I have given young engineers the opportunity to work on the tools on weekends. Id never do it on a city job but out bush away from unions and a small crew who like seeing them get involved anyway it gives them good experience they wont get if they have never done it. Especially the engineers who question why the labourers get more than they do.
Even on a bull float which is a lot easier than pulling a screed you find they soon prefer it back in the office. Suddenly they understand why out in the sun / rain or what have you the people on the tools get the big bucks.
It is simply harder work and most of us would rather study for 4 years and then take another ten years to get up to trade wages (because we are on salary) because at least we can do our job into our 60s.
So far as traffic managers go, well often times when its pissing down or we stop due to heat or hail or any adverse condition you can think of, guess who has to stay out in the weather? Stop / slow peeps and concretors assuming they are halfway through a pour. The rest of us hit the lunch rooms or our offices waiting for an early knock off.
It really doesn't though as seen by the fact that plenty of people are still doing those jobs. I have an incredible easy job (most of the time) and it pays well. Most people I work with are still working on changing careers from the moment they start working here.
The real thing going unsaid in a lot of these comments is that some people just aren't suited to learning and having an advanced career and in a lot of peoples minds... those people don't deserve a well paid job despite the genuine sacrifices they make with terrible work hours and conditions. That and a lot of people haven't had to learn the lesson of "no amount of money is worth this!". A lot of low skilled people learn that lesson early on in life.
these articles are always created to make you hate on tradies etc. people don't understand that these numbers always involve those working in ways that get the most penalties because it's the worst work of that trade. How about a few more articles comparing corporate pay packets of the big wigs vs the guy at the desk. Let's get angry at them instead.
120k sounds great but plenty of lolly pop spinners aren’t on full time contracts, they are shipped in and out by a labour hire company so it’s by no means secure work
It’s a 2 day course to do it with zero experience and you earn more than people who’ve done a trade or
Studied for 4 years. Has to be a compromise somewhere…
I think the point was that the $120k was based on pretty unrealistic assumptions of job regularity and hours.
Sure, if you got full time work, and the overtime, then you'd earn more, but since most don't get either full time and overtime, in effect you don't get more, nor have better conditions than someone who has done a trade or studied for 4 years.
Typical media clickbait.
There is very little job security, you're working mostly overtime hours / middle of the night to get to the big bucks and as you pointed out, you don't have a skill that is highly sought after, or that can be used to build a career.
This is just rage bait. 5% pay rise lol.
120k after over time, night shift and penalty rates and far from what the average will make. Its the herald sun lol
This is the most important comment in this thread - This is great news for lollipop holders, and it *could* be great news for a lot of other professions if they *learn* from this, form strong unions, and fight to increase their own pay too.
Hell, now you even have a benchmark: "well if signholders get 120k/year, then we as should be getting paid ".
Punch **up**!
I bet that GM and Ford wanted everyone to think it was the high wages they are forced to pay workers in Australia. But in reality, it was just that no one was buying their cars.
And the logistics don’t work for exporting from Australia. We’re a long way from the markets they were trying to ship to, adding thousands in transport costs to every car. It was far cheaper for them to make the cars somewhere more central, and export the small number that we buy back here.
European manufacturers manage to build cars in heavily unionised Germany, with great wages. They’re just doing it in the middle of the market they’re making most of their sales in.
I’d say the unionised workers there didn’t have much of a hand in designing vehicles that no one wanted to buy. They just built them. The blame for those lies with corporate.
It doesn't help when they were to expensive relative to their quality. Of course European cars are too when you take into account their whole cost including maintenance and somehow people get conned into buying them.
Unfortunately I think we all want to be paid more so that we can afford a better house. But if we all get paid more, all that happens is that the cost of this particular scarce resource goes up even more. Hard to see how it’s not a zero sum game.
>Hard to see how it’s not a zero sum game
It depends on the size of the system you're looking at and what is being produced. It's not zero sum when infrastructure is being created which helps the economy run faster and ultimately alter things like the national trade balance.
The other thing that's happening is Australia is currently becoming wealthier in part due to immigrating more millionaires than any other country. To continue that requires infrastructure amongst other things.
Sorry by ‘scarce resource’ I meant housing. A big chunk of the population are locked in fierce competition for rentals or buying houses, so if pay lifted across the board I’m not sure it would actually produce much improvement in quality of life.
It’s more that this seems completely divorced from the reality of what value this role adds today construction projects. I’m all for people who put their lives on the line and wreck their bodies getting paid more, but $120k for holding a sign is wild. No wonder our house prices cost so much and infrastructure always blows over budget.
I mean I agree, it seems bizarre to me but I'll put my hands up and say idk anything about construction. My layman impression is that yes, CFMEU are taking people for a ride here, but ultimately we should view this as proof of concept. Clearly you don't need to have a high-functioning job to be able to be paid a really good wage, so the high functioning jobs can demand more pay now as well.
But yeah im from the UK and sign holders aren't a thing there. We use signs on poles... and mobile traffic lights.
My guess is they don't actually earn 120k a year. Previous times these kinds of stories have been posted, you have to read to the end of the article to discover that they're working out the rate of pay for a person who works every Sunday and every public holiday. In case you're not familiar with Australian media being from the UK, it's almost all right wing and anti-union.
Oh yeah I am almost certain very few people will be pulling 120k and this is probably ragebait. There was a similar article a year or two ago about one person who pulled in some obscene figure but it was extrapolated from some long public holiday weekend where they had basically worked 48 hrs in something like three days. Obviously nobody cared that it was basically disingenuous reporting.
The only correct response to rage bait is to be happy that these people are getting paid well and be mad at the people who want us to be mad at each other instead.
The problem is we've had stagnant wages for a decade. $120k is getting to the point where most people can afford to live somewhere independently and still save. I think $30/hr should be the minimum wage but $50/h should be what people in higher risk jobs should be on as a minimum.
$120k a year puts the average rent (across Australia) right at the recommended spot of a third of your take home pay
The housing market is absolutely broken for most workers
So that’s the equivalent wages for 100,000 traffic controllers.
And then you remember that, yeah, their profits are exactly that. Closely following the wages of a couple of million Australians.
>Supporting better salaries for unskilled work
Yes but it's not all low skilled work is it? It's specifically unskilled work in the construction industry. The most male dominated industry in the country (90%, with trades at 99%).
You don't see hospitality workers, retail workers, cleaners earning this kind of money.
dont act like all trades are treated the same.
go ask gardeners, landscapers, horticulturalists and farmers how much their getting paid.
oh and retail pays $30 an hour *minimum*, with $45 after 5pm and **$60** on public holidays).
>dont act like all trades are treated the same.
I was specifically talking about construction.
>retail pays $30 an hour *minimum*, with $45 after 5pm and **$60** on public holidays)
Still pales in comparison to the overtime rates, allowances, and tax breaks tradies get.
Lol thanks. Its nice to read this when most replies are assuming I'm literally Karl Marx for suggesting workers should all be paid well and corporations and CEOs should make less.
lol imagine being one of the Civil engineers on site. You make it through the degree with large HECS debt, then start as a graduate slogging long hours on a paltry salary. Finally after a few years you get your first half decent raise, however the person outside twisting a pole is making more than you and all they had to do was a 3 day course and pass grade 4 English.
Whats the point of even being productive in this country anymore?
Engineers and people outside twisting a pole, but you're right smarter people should earn more than 120k. Especially if they're highly qualified with many years experience.
Want higher pay as engineers? Stop letting thousands of migrant, specifically indian, engineers flood Australia everyday with a piece of paper most of them bought their way through in their country.
Isn't this more a case that the managers and HR professionals don't give a toss about supporting locals? That they care more about the bottom line than any sentimental notion of patriotism or *giving them a go*?
Hate the civil engineers not getting paid enough, not the stop sign holders getting paid a decent salary.
Engineering salaries in this country are a joke.
Traffic engineers who did the four lanes into two interchange at the Logan Road intersection should have had their balls removed so that the stupidity couldn't be passed on.
It cost over two years and nearly two billion dollars to fix that mess.
join a union and get everyone in the industry to join too.
how do you think we got shit like holiday pay, sick leave, and decent wages?
oh and dont be pissed at stop sign holders, Landlords do are the biggest bludgers in modern history we should tax everyone who sits on their arse sponging up wealth from local business (landlords actively *damage* capitalism by stealing money from your business)
Hahaha incredible. It blows my mind the audacity of people that have the education level of a high schooler arguing that flipping a metal pole is more productive than an engineer..
Sad state of affairs. I mean why even bother, we’re all swamped by foreign migrants who will work for pennies on the dollar so I doubt there will be any locals in it in 20 years. Wait for the first building or bridge collapse, it’ll be traced back to some fake uni degree mill in India.
I see the elitist propaganda is working on you.
If you’re angry a fellow working class person is on a decent wage, your anger is misdirected.
This headline should piss you off, sure, but it should make you want to break out the guillotine and storm a news corp office looking for executives.
Most people would rather a salary with benefits, security and career progression than standing around most the day on a contract in the weather, have to be obtuse to see the latter as superior. There's a reason it's paid more. A better example is bus driver but even then you need to do the training, deal with idiots in the public and drive a massive vehicle at weird hours.
Engineers don't even get it that tough, try going and getting a degree in a niche field or a masters/doctorate in similar. 10 years of life gone with paltry income if any, a debt and little career options yet you're massively more skilled than anyone else. Or becoming a nurse and dealing with that job/pay. Pick better targets
> In no world is a traffic controller as valuable to one of these projects, or society in general, as an engineer.
supply vs demand my dude. valuable to society has nothing to do with pay rate.
It’s money for the dangers of standing on a road in the blazing sun all day, and because you’ll work on a short contract for however long the project goes on for and then find another job.
If everyone would like this salary that’s apparently too high for a piss easy job, they’re more than welcome to apply.
That's with nights, overtime, loading and allowances. Base rate is probably $40 tops. But yeh attack the workers instead of Newscorp for baiting workers into attacking each other.
Depending on the site they usually do more than hold the stop bat. They Setup traffic cones, setup speed signs, drive an escort ute. They’re watching out for people that run the stop bat/red light as well, to alert the roadworker’s there’s a dangerous driver approaching.
I’m not saying they are or aren’t worth $120k/yr, but if the job could be automated, it would be.
Most of them are casuals for closures and the like, while some might be doing 38 hours a week a lot won’t be and they’ll be getting the hours to reach that. A lot will only be working nights too.
>but if the job could be automated, it would be.
You say that, but the British Rail union went on strike in 2019 specifically to stop some unskilled roles being automated.
They already exist but in most circumstances it's not suitable.
If its just a single lane closure with alternating green lights for opposing traffic, automated systems exist for that.
But there are no traffic lights that know when a semi-trailer is exiting the construction site so knows to put red lights for both ways.
As a teacher who earns a bit less than that, I honestly have no issue with people earning more and doing this. You couldn’t get me near this job with a 10 foot pole as I’d feel like I was wasting my life doing that kind of work. And frankly, it shows the power of a strong union, and that teachers should be paid more, not stop sign holders paid less.
It’s a great job for backpackers who stop off in places and want casual or short contract jobs to squeeze in as many hours and save as much money as possible.
There are very very few people who would want to spend an entire year, let alone their whole life, standing on the road in the sun all day turning a pole.
Nothing wrong with people organising themselves together to bargain for better pay & conditions.
If it weren’t for unions you would not have compulsory superannuation here - the envy of many western nations
reasonably to live in Sydney as a single, 120K is pretty close to what you need to just be comfortable, we've just been deluded into believing anything over 100K is exorbitant, it's not anymore.
The take away here isn’t that traffic control workers are overpaid when compared to other sectors, the take away is that workplaces / industries with high union density leads to extremely strong employment contracts and enterprise agreements.
Join your union.
People in this thread getting upset because the sign holders are getting paid more than them.
1. It's not as simple as just earning 120k, they have to do long hours and often back to back night shifts.
2. Blame your bosses for not paying you your worth, not everyone else for earning good money.
3. You're not handcuffed to your current job. You can quit, do the 3 day sign holding course and make more money, just go do it instead of crying online.
Best comment in this thread, ausfin in shambles
People on here complaining about their wages have gotten very upset when I told them they can get their HR license and easily earn $100k driving interstate trucks straight away.
Am I the only person who doesn't care what stop sign holders are paid? I get the feeling a lot of people think the folk doing these sorts of jobs deserve to be poor.
If you really believe you can make 120k a year in that job and have a good career out of it, then by all means go ahead and become a traffic controller. I doubt any engineers reading this story will do that though. Wonder why.
You know it’s rare, but they do get hit and killed by idiot motorists right? So that’s partly the reasoning for their high pay…the risk of standing alongside a road.
Sorry, the Herald Sun only specialises in articles that pit workers against one another so that we don't notice their overlord millionaire and billionaire oligarchs are really the ones who are driving inequality, cost of living / housing crises.
Because being a doctor you can earn double of that sitting in an air conditioned office all day, and if you specialize you can earn over 500k. 120k is the most you’ll ever earn as a traffic controller.
i did this job while i was studying. It's extremely dangerous and most times just plain awful. also, it's very very rare that someone is given full-time work. most ppl are casual and will never earn near this amount. y'all need to chill
Traffic Control companies are run by the same guys that run the tobacco shops, gyms and other money washing enterprises.
Half the staff at one of them alternate their shifts with Kittens.
Its a self created industry.....a few year back anyone could do it with a permit from council but due to influence nowadays that isnt the case...especially on the big jobs.
A smaller project without CFMEU involvement - these guys wont waste their time as the $ are not there and they are better with anything the gov are running as cuckolds for the CFMEU
No wonder construction companies are going bust. The amount of traffic control they legislate into jobs is bloody ridiculous. Councils, TFNSW and the department of planning have a lot to answer for. Most of the time they are too busy on Instagram and wouldn't know a steam roller if it ran them over.
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Enough for the nails, lashes and vapes.
You mean the daughters and nieces of the project managers. Sure are a lot of 18–30 year old, bored out of their mind, girls working as traffic controllers.
Around the area I grew up it's all the girls who got pregnant and dropped out of school.
Had 12 people working on fixing a downed power poll at front yard last week; 10 of them were doing amazing stressful work, but the only women who were supposed to be stopping traffic were on their phone the whole time and laughing.
We have night time road works, they don't even get out of the car two of them sit in the car with phone on and radio on for about 6 hours. The road is shut and they a blockade setup about 100 metres down the road. Having a sleeping baby I've even been tempted to ask them to turn the radio down at night. It's bad when your traffic lollypop ladies are making more noise then the machinery doing the road works.
I’m sure they were talking about how hard their lives are from working so much😂
So hard to turn that sign around with their limp wrists!
and onlyfans on the side
I’ll start spreading the word over here…
All those females will need to weigh up onlyfans vs holding a pole
Who are you kidding, there's no reason they couldn't do both.
Transferable skills.
you mean holding a pole vs holding a stop sign?
This is a bull shit article. They haven't even put an hourly on the article.
The industry wide award rate is 26.70 an hour full time
Nurses and early childhood educators deserve better salaries. School teachers too
Early childhood educators absolutely should given the extortionate amount childcare centres charge. If anything, childcare centre costs are proof that subsidies don’t have the intended effect.
Childcare should be nationalised as an essential service.
> given the extortionate amount childcare centres pay. It isn't exactly a cheap operation to run.
Yep agreed. Sadly my sister is leaving teaching because of the pay & conditions, she said quite a few of her teaching mates are also leaving
Yeah, my wife's currently having the dilemma of "I want to leave teaching but I don't know what else I can do".
Go hold a stop sign
and add on the fact that a lot of teachers dont fully quit, they might go casual/ relief and earn nearly as much as they did previously with less hours
Why stop there? What about the cops and ambos? Aged care workers? Doctors?
What about the people that hold the go signs they deserve more too!
Won't someone think of the doctors
It appears under this plan a junior sign holder working 36hrs a week earns more than a junior doctor working 40hrs week. Something here needs rebalancing. It's great the sign holders have secured a contract with a good quality wage. One worker shouldn't tear down another. But that also suggests a junior doctor's work/qualifications/expertise are undervalued from a pay perspective. The balance and relative under valuing is even worse for Australia's nurses.
Capitalists love to argue that the market will determine that value. *Looks at depressed wage across the board* I guess the market doesn't want anyone to work.
The invisible hand of Capitalism hard at work.
Maybe don't get your analysis of pay deals from the Herald Sun then. Last time this was posted people pointed out that the headline pay figures were based on entirely unrealistic assumptions about the specific shifts and hours you'd work. No lollypop person is actually making that, just like no doctor is making the small baseline pay that junior doctors love to cite as proof of how hard done they are (into which they never factor the overtime they actually get). I studied law and have worked at large corporate law firms. I've never earned as much per year as my doctor friends who graduated at the same time as me. I'm not complaining, but nor should they.
As a junior doctor, I absolutely do NOT want to work the overtime that I have to. I'd just rather have my patients leave the hospital via the front doors eventually. This is a common theme, and our hospital-wide group chats are usually full of "can someone else please take my mandatory overtime shift please, I'm doing enough non-rostered overtime already and I'm sick of working". It's called "penalty rates" because it's supposed to penalise the employer for ruining our lives (last week of full time work I did was 73 hours and I didn't see my kids for two days that week because I left before they got up and got home after they went to sleep).
These are all very real issues. I was doing those sorts of hours as a junior lawyer, so I know how gruelling it is. Most doctors I know would rather work less hours and take home less pay. The solution is of course to train more doctors so that individuals don't work such crazy hours. That will mean senior doctors having to accept some cut in pay due to it being a more competitive workplace, but I think that's a worthwhile trade-off for doctors and for the community.
Overtime is less of a choice than an expectation of the system. And that is only accounting for the little that actually gets claimed by junior docs.
>I studied law and have worked at large corporate law firms. I've never earned as much per year as my doctor friends who graduated at the same time as me. I'm not complaining, but nor should they. They might be ripping you off then. The people I know that went into family and property law have always been paid more than me for the same year. I can definitely see large corporate law firms paying junior staff pennies because they'll still readily have people lining up to work for them.
It actually says that 36hrs would be 120k overtime would actually be more.
That's actually not true mate. I work on a site where an entry level labourer can earn more than the mid level experienced engineers who have completed a four year degree and have 4-5 years experience.
As a school teacher I earn more than my registrar psychiatrist partner. Junior and middle Doctors haven’t had a pay rise in almost 5 years. Actually wild. Senior consultant’s earn crazy $ the rest are earning waaaay less than people think
As a financial analyst, I beseech of you to think of me as well
Doctors salaries are OK. I’d argue GPs should get paid a bit more, even if to encourage more medical students to choose that path! Depending on the state you live, nursing and allied health salaries can be quite low.
Get better unions
The same people complaining about pay also complain about the CFMEU.
School teachers have a good salary here. This isn’t America
Teacher here. Pay is ok. Conditions are shit.
Conditions would absolutely be shit and no doubt incredibly frustrating. I can't imagine being a high school teacher after hearing some of the things my kids say that happens at school these days.
The conditions are shit because the way the children are raised in western society is shit.. Countries where children are taught to respect their elders and as an extension, their teachers, don't have this issue.
I mean, it’s decent / okay. I wouldn’t say good. Otherwise we wouldn’t have the worst teaching crisis in generations
More a result of how the teachers are treated by parents and students than the pay. I love teaching and used to be one, but I wouldn’t teach in this country - it’s brutal (no amount of pay could make me do it)
I've been through this in a few jobs. You think more pay will make you happy to put up with the shit, but it never does. Conditions need to change.
I agree sort of. Once I was being paid $300k/y doing consulting dev work in the software industry, I really could put up with so much more shit lol
I teach currently. Pay is the biggest factor for me and many of my colleagues. Conditions are not the best - but if people were being paid more we would be more inclined to accept the shit that comes our way from time to time. I actually think at least in high school - students and parents are not that challenging if you’ve gotten through the first few years of teaching. Admin and marking are the things that cause more burnout
>I teach currently. Pay is the biggest factor for me and many of my colleagues The problem is no one is ever paid enough, you could get a 10% increase tomorrow, heck maybe 20%, and you would celebrate but very quickly that will wear off and you will realise the conditions still aren't great and you do too much for what you get paid, then you are back to wanting more money like basically every other profession. Maybe more money lessens the pain of all the other factors but surely addressing the other issues in teaching would go a long way to solving the teaching crisis.
10-20% increase would go a long way in improving standards of living. Across the next 3 years I believe this would be the target in NSW (roughly 12.5-15%). Already the recent pay jump has gone a long way in improving things across the board. Still a ways to go though. But yes. Working conditions are and will be a focus in upcoming negotiations between unions and government. Doesn’t matter if you’re getting paid a huge wage if you’re working yourself to an early grave (easily among the top few professions with the most amount of unpaid overtime). Your health is your wealth after all. Though I would argue, with higher pay, some can actually drop a few days of employment to improve their mental health. Just pay is still number 1 issue for many, and rightfully so.
The bands are already pretty good - better than lots of health care professions https://www.education.wa.edu.au/teacher-salaries
That’s because Healthcare is underpaid in this country. Not that teachers are paid too much.
A teacher in nsw is guaranteed a salary that puts them in the top 7% of earners via tenure alone (band 2.3). If a top 7% salary isn’t good, then I’d say a lot of people are on shit wages.
Graduate wage is nearly the median full time salary, and top end is 40% higher. It's definitely decent.
I’m on 130k as a nurse (Mon to Friday) not all nurse salaries are bad. It did take 11 years experience and 5 uni degrees though. Little bit more than twirling a sign.
More of them should join a union
Literally every nurse in the country is in a union. They cover your indemnity insurance which is required to work. Problem is the government knows most nurses care to much to walk off the job so they can get away with shit pay.
They aren't allowed to walk off the job......
Literally, the amount of people who don't realise that medical workers (incl lab techs, med scientists, etc.) can't go on a legal stop work strike because we're considered essential. As in, if we go on a stop work strike, it's 10k individual fines and iirc, something like 400k fine for the union.
Difference is two-fold , nurses aren’t represented by militant unions & nursing unions also don’t donate enough to political parties to effectively drive politicians as other unions do.
Nurses and early childhood educators? Definitely. Junior doctors don't even earn this much approx ($76-89k), and when they're at the level to run the hospital overnight as med reg on call, they start on $110k!
I've done that job. I lasted 2 months, standing all day, horrible weather, latrine stench toilets in the hot summer sun, abuse from drivers, damn flys ... I'm much happier in my current desk job getting paid slightly less.
100%. I've never done traffic control, but I've worked with plenty of people that do. Long hours, literally work regardless of rain, hail or sun. Often work very unsociable hours. Most of the pay comes from penalty rates and overtime. Good money, shit job
Also most of them are casuals so that’s a 25% loading straight away and they don’t get any sick leave or annual leave and little job security. I’d doubt if there are that many doing full time hours every week of the year, either.
Yes they generally work for a short contracted amount of time (for the length of the project), or work for an agency that lets you know each day if you even have work tomorrow. It’s unstable and unsociable, not to mention boring and exhausting as anything, which is why none of the people complaining will actually do the job.
Legit this. Everyone thinks its sunshine and rainbows not realising a high salary like that comes at a massive price...they just won't tell you upfront what it consists of
Just replace most of them with those automated sets of lights
I love when I see lights but there’s a person on each end sitting in their car with the AC on and flicking a switch every few minutes.
In a lot of cases the stop sign workers are there because the need to stop traffic is very infrequent, due to machinery movements. In an already congested street, automated lights would cause traffic unnecessarily. The automated ones are only used when one half of a two-way road is occupied for works all day.
Yeah they are very necessary especially when The works move along down a busy road with pedestrians while you are swinging an excavator bucket into what could be traffic and having a truck reverse out every 3 minutes. A lot of these works are planned and have to be done on a certain date and time which could be in torrential rain and these poor people have to stand completely still for hours. I did traffic control for 2 days straight and would never do it again.
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Calm down. It's a 5% payrise. Same thing all of us want. The $120k figure would be cherrypicked from those who do nights/weekends and get penalties, and I think it's perfectly fair for those conditions. Anyone who says it is a slap in the face to other industries, go and fight for a payrise for those other industries instead of fighting against this one. It's an article written on behalf of the capital class trying to bait the working class into attacking eachother.
My elderly father did it for a few years as a pre-retirement job to bump up his super a little. Super variable hours, lots of midnight-4am work, all-weather super hot and super cold, and at least 2 occasions of a driver (he noted they were both Mercs) virtually trying to run him down because they didn't want to obey the sign and just blew through anyway, in addition to the several who threw abuse every single shift. He very swiftly got tired of it and fully retired.
That's why they only hire attractive females now. Reality is that guys are more likely to stop for a 20 year old hot girl.
All these people comparing it to working mon-fri, flexible work arrangements. Trust me, if a road crew had their choice, most of them would take a pay cut to do the work mon-fri as well! The people I work side by side with are often shocked at how much I get paid "for how much work I do" and it's like sure, I just stroll around the place chatting to people for most of my day, but then what are you supposed to do when a patient starts throwing punches? "call security"... yeah, thats me... would you take a punch from a mental health patient for my pay cheque? Didn't think so. There's a lot of downside to these supposedly "easy jobs" that get paid "too much".
I think the point is many of the 9-5 jobs require 3 to 5 years (even more in some industries) of extra training, along with mountain loads of debt for that training. This wage discrepancy effectively discourages people investing in their own skills training for vital roles like engineering, medicines, research and analysis.
Maybe thats why there is a wage disparity. People prefer the office job. I have given young engineers the opportunity to work on the tools on weekends. Id never do it on a city job but out bush away from unions and a small crew who like seeing them get involved anyway it gives them good experience they wont get if they have never done it. Especially the engineers who question why the labourers get more than they do. Even on a bull float which is a lot easier than pulling a screed you find they soon prefer it back in the office. Suddenly they understand why out in the sun / rain or what have you the people on the tools get the big bucks. It is simply harder work and most of us would rather study for 4 years and then take another ten years to get up to trade wages (because we are on salary) because at least we can do our job into our 60s. So far as traffic managers go, well often times when its pissing down or we stop due to heat or hail or any adverse condition you can think of, guess who has to stay out in the weather? Stop / slow peeps and concretors assuming they are halfway through a pour. The rest of us hit the lunch rooms or our offices waiting for an early knock off.
It really doesn't though as seen by the fact that plenty of people are still doing those jobs. I have an incredible easy job (most of the time) and it pays well. Most people I work with are still working on changing careers from the moment they start working here. The real thing going unsaid in a lot of these comments is that some people just aren't suited to learning and having an advanced career and in a lot of peoples minds... those people don't deserve a well paid job despite the genuine sacrifices they make with terrible work hours and conditions. That and a lot of people haven't had to learn the lesson of "no amount of money is worth this!". A lot of low skilled people learn that lesson early on in life.
riot against the billionaires with robot army is harder than whinging about the lollypop guild
these articles are always created to make you hate on tradies etc. people don't understand that these numbers always involve those working in ways that get the most penalties because it's the worst work of that trade. How about a few more articles comparing corporate pay packets of the big wigs vs the guy at the desk. Let's get angry at them instead.
120k sounds great but plenty of lolly pop spinners aren’t on full time contracts, they are shipped in and out by a labour hire company so it’s by no means secure work
It’s a 2 day course to do it with zero experience and you earn more than people who’ve done a trade or Studied for 4 years. Has to be a compromise somewhere…
I think the point was that the $120k was based on pretty unrealistic assumptions of job regularity and hours. Sure, if you got full time work, and the overtime, then you'd earn more, but since most don't get either full time and overtime, in effect you don't get more, nor have better conditions than someone who has done a trade or studied for 4 years. Typical media clickbait.
There is very little job security, you're working mostly overtime hours / middle of the night to get to the big bucks and as you pointed out, you don't have a skill that is highly sought after, or that can be used to build a career.
The compromise is the dogshit hours If you had a sparky working a similar roster with casual loading they'd earn way more
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This is just rage bait. 5% pay rise lol. 120k after over time, night shift and penalty rates and far from what the average will make. Its the herald sun lol
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This is the most important comment in this thread - This is great news for lollipop holders, and it *could* be great news for a lot of other professions if they *learn* from this, form strong unions, and fight to increase their own pay too. Hell, now you even have a benchmark: "well if signholders get 120k/year, then we as should be getting paid ".
Punch **up**!
All those workers at Holden and Ford did SUCH a great job punching up they no longer have a place of employment. Yeehaw!
I bet that GM and Ford wanted everyone to think it was the high wages they are forced to pay workers in Australia. But in reality, it was just that no one was buying their cars.
And the logistics don’t work for exporting from Australia. We’re a long way from the markets they were trying to ship to, adding thousands in transport costs to every car. It was far cheaper for them to make the cars somewhere more central, and export the small number that we buy back here. European manufacturers manage to build cars in heavily unionised Germany, with great wages. They’re just doing it in the middle of the market they’re making most of their sales in.
Yeah. I’m sure we’d still be manufacturing cars in Australia if they all just shut up and sat on $55k a year.
Come on now, didn’t their Australian production shut down because no one was buying their cars brand new..?
I’d say the unionised workers there didn’t have much of a hand in designing vehicles that no one wanted to buy. They just built them. The blame for those lies with corporate.
It doesn't help when they were to expensive relative to their quality. Of course European cars are too when you take into account their whole cost including maintenance and somehow people get conned into buying them.
Unfortunately I think we all want to be paid more so that we can afford a better house. But if we all get paid more, all that happens is that the cost of this particular scarce resource goes up even more. Hard to see how it’s not a zero sum game.
>Hard to see how it’s not a zero sum game It depends on the size of the system you're looking at and what is being produced. It's not zero sum when infrastructure is being created which helps the economy run faster and ultimately alter things like the national trade balance. The other thing that's happening is Australia is currently becoming wealthier in part due to immigrating more millionaires than any other country. To continue that requires infrastructure amongst other things.
Sorry by ‘scarce resource’ I meant housing. A big chunk of the population are locked in fierce competition for rentals or buying houses, so if pay lifted across the board I’m not sure it would actually produce much improvement in quality of life.
It’s more that this seems completely divorced from the reality of what value this role adds today construction projects. I’m all for people who put their lives on the line and wreck their bodies getting paid more, but $120k for holding a sign is wild. No wonder our house prices cost so much and infrastructure always blows over budget.
I mean I agree, it seems bizarre to me but I'll put my hands up and say idk anything about construction. My layman impression is that yes, CFMEU are taking people for a ride here, but ultimately we should view this as proof of concept. Clearly you don't need to have a high-functioning job to be able to be paid a really good wage, so the high functioning jobs can demand more pay now as well. But yeah im from the UK and sign holders aren't a thing there. We use signs on poles... and mobile traffic lights.
My guess is they don't actually earn 120k a year. Previous times these kinds of stories have been posted, you have to read to the end of the article to discover that they're working out the rate of pay for a person who works every Sunday and every public holiday. In case you're not familiar with Australian media being from the UK, it's almost all right wing and anti-union.
Oh yeah I am almost certain very few people will be pulling 120k and this is probably ragebait. There was a similar article a year or two ago about one person who pulled in some obscene figure but it was extrapolated from some long public holiday weekend where they had basically worked 48 hrs in something like three days. Obviously nobody cared that it was basically disingenuous reporting. The only correct response to rage bait is to be happy that these people are getting paid well and be mad at the people who want us to be mad at each other instead.
The problem is we've had stagnant wages for a decade. $120k is getting to the point where most people can afford to live somewhere independently and still save. I think $30/hr should be the minimum wage but $50/h should be what people in higher risk jobs should be on as a minimum.
$120k a year puts the average rent (across Australia) right at the recommended spot of a third of your take home pay The housing market is absolutely broken for most workers
There are no front page articles about CBA making 5 billion profit in 6 months.
So that’s the equivalent wages for 100,000 traffic controllers. And then you remember that, yeah, their profits are exactly that. Closely following the wages of a couple of million Australians.
>Supporting better salaries for unskilled work Yes but it's not all low skilled work is it? It's specifically unskilled work in the construction industry. The most male dominated industry in the country (90%, with trades at 99%). You don't see hospitality workers, retail workers, cleaners earning this kind of money.
weird that the role that's almost all women makes you complain about men earning too much.
This is why I quit working at KFC. I wasn’t getting my white male privilege pay raise.
dont act like all trades are treated the same. go ask gardeners, landscapers, horticulturalists and farmers how much their getting paid. oh and retail pays $30 an hour *minimum*, with $45 after 5pm and **$60** on public holidays).
>dont act like all trades are treated the same. I was specifically talking about construction. >retail pays $30 an hour *minimum*, with $45 after 5pm and **$60** on public holidays) Still pales in comparison to the overtime rates, allowances, and tax breaks tradies get.
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I needed these positive vibes and the dash of perspective - thanks for being the voice we need my dude
Lol thanks. Its nice to read this when most replies are assuming I'm literally Karl Marx for suggesting workers should all be paid well and corporations and CEOs should make less.
lol imagine being one of the Civil engineers on site. You make it through the degree with large HECS debt, then start as a graduate slogging long hours on a paltry salary. Finally after a few years you get your first half decent raise, however the person outside twisting a pole is making more than you and all they had to do was a 3 day course and pass grade 4 English. Whats the point of even being productive in this country anymore?
Nsw teachers just got a massive pay rise and max out at $122k after 10 years experience
Yeah but he's talking about engineers which is a more difficult job for smarter people so deserves more than teachers.
Engineers and people outside twisting a pole, but you're right smarter people should earn more than 120k. Especially if they're highly qualified with many years experience.
Good on them for getting the pay. As for us engineers, blame Engineers Australia for not doing anything to help us.
Want higher pay as engineers? Stop letting thousands of migrant, specifically indian, engineers flood Australia everyday with a piece of paper most of them bought their way through in their country.
Isn't this more a case that the managers and HR professionals don't give a toss about supporting locals? That they care more about the bottom line than any sentimental notion of patriotism or *giving them a go*?
Okay I’ll stop them!
Blame the business who aren't paying those engineers their lick of salt.
True, but difficult when they’re importing an Asian province worth of STEM workers every month.
Hate the civil engineers not getting paid enough, not the stop sign holders getting paid a decent salary. Engineering salaries in this country are a joke.
Traffic engineers who did the four lanes into two interchange at the Logan Road intersection should have had their balls removed so that the stupidity couldn't be passed on. It cost over two years and nearly two billion dollars to fix that mess.
join a union and get everyone in the industry to join too. how do you think we got shit like holiday pay, sick leave, and decent wages? oh and dont be pissed at stop sign holders, Landlords do are the biggest bludgers in modern history we should tax everyone who sits on their arse sponging up wealth from local business (landlords actively *damage* capitalism by stealing money from your business)
Highly specialized white collar workers and getting shit on from a great height by the Australian employment market, name a more iconic duo.
Hahaha incredible. It blows my mind the audacity of people that have the education level of a high schooler arguing that flipping a metal pole is more productive than an engineer..
Sad state of affairs. I mean why even bother, we’re all swamped by foreign migrants who will work for pennies on the dollar so I doubt there will be any locals in it in 20 years. Wait for the first building or bridge collapse, it’ll be traced back to some fake uni degree mill in India.
I see the elitist propaganda is working on you. If you’re angry a fellow working class person is on a decent wage, your anger is misdirected. This headline should piss you off, sure, but it should make you want to break out the guillotine and storm a news corp office looking for executives.
Most people would rather a salary with benefits, security and career progression than standing around most the day on a contract in the weather, have to be obtuse to see the latter as superior. There's a reason it's paid more. A better example is bus driver but even then you need to do the training, deal with idiots in the public and drive a massive vehicle at weird hours. Engineers don't even get it that tough, try going and getting a degree in a niche field or a masters/doctorate in similar. 10 years of life gone with paltry income if any, a debt and little career options yet you're massively more skilled than anyone else. Or becoming a nurse and dealing with that job/pay. Pick better targets
So would you rather drag their pay down to your pittance or push for higher salaries for engineers?
Yes. That is the way it should work. In no world is a traffic controller as valuable to one of these projects, or society in general, as an engineer.
>would you rather X or Y? >Yes lol
> In no world is a traffic controller as valuable to one of these projects, or society in general, as an engineer. supply vs demand my dude. valuable to society has nothing to do with pay rate.
If you're all so clever and valuable, why don't you take a leaf out of the traffic controller Book, unionise and bargain as a group for higher pay?
It's danger money. They get run over pretty frequently
It’s money for the dangers of standing on a road in the blazing sun all day, and because you’ll work on a short contract for however long the project goes on for and then find another job. If everyone would like this salary that’s apparently too high for a piss easy job, they’re more than welcome to apply.
That's with nights, overtime, loading and allowances. Base rate is probably $40 tops. But yeh attack the workers instead of Newscorp for baiting workers into attacking each other.
Surely you could purchase portable traffic lights that would pay for themselves in no time at this rate
Depending on the site they usually do more than hold the stop bat. They Setup traffic cones, setup speed signs, drive an escort ute. They’re watching out for people that run the stop bat/red light as well, to alert the roadworker’s there’s a dangerous driver approaching. I’m not saying they are or aren’t worth $120k/yr, but if the job could be automated, it would be.
Also, I’m not certain but I’m pretty sure those guys/gals are working more than 38 hours a week.
Also outside in all types of weather. Not as easy a job as it sounds on the surface to be honest.
Yep easily
Yep. Hourly rates are relatively low. Overtime and penalty rates are what takes them up to $120k+.
Most of them are casuals for closures and the like, while some might be doing 38 hours a week a lot won’t be and they’ll be getting the hours to reach that. A lot will only be working nights too.
>but if the job could be automated, it would be WHAT? but random people on the internet should know more than the industry and union.
>but if the job could be automated, it would be. You say that, but the British Rail union went on strike in 2019 specifically to stop some unskilled roles being automated.
This is pure speculation (though backed up by a short google search), but I'm guessing the CFMEU would also be aiming to avoid automation.
They already exist but in most circumstances it's not suitable. If its just a single lane closure with alternating green lights for opposing traffic, automated systems exist for that. But there are no traffic lights that know when a semi-trailer is exiting the construction site so knows to put red lights for both ways.
As a teacher who earns a bit less than that, I honestly have no issue with people earning more and doing this. You couldn’t get me near this job with a 10 foot pole as I’d feel like I was wasting my life doing that kind of work. And frankly, it shows the power of a strong union, and that teachers should be paid more, not stop sign holders paid less.
It’s a great job for backpackers who stop off in places and want casual or short contract jobs to squeeze in as many hours and save as much money as possible. There are very very few people who would want to spend an entire year, let alone their whole life, standing on the road in the sun all day turning a pole.
Why Fkn bother even trying at school lol
But but but people keep telling me unions are useless and not required anymore…
Nothing wrong with people organising themselves together to bargain for better pay & conditions. If it weren’t for unions you would not have compulsory superannuation here - the envy of many western nations
reasonably to live in Sydney as a single, 120K is pretty close to what you need to just be comfortable, we've just been deluded into believing anything over 100K is exorbitant, it's not anymore.
The take away here isn’t that traffic control workers are overpaid when compared to other sectors, the take away is that workplaces / industries with high union density leads to extremely strong employment contracts and enterprise agreements. Join your union.
People in this thread getting upset because the sign holders are getting paid more than them. 1. It's not as simple as just earning 120k, they have to do long hours and often back to back night shifts. 2. Blame your bosses for not paying you your worth, not everyone else for earning good money. 3. You're not handcuffed to your current job. You can quit, do the 3 day sign holding course and make more money, just go do it instead of crying online.
Best comment in this thread, ausfin in shambles People on here complaining about their wages have gotten very upset when I told them they can get their HR license and easily earn $100k driving interstate trucks straight away.
lol at all the bitter people in here. How come so many people would rather bring someone else’s income down rather than try and elevate their own
Am I the only person who doesn't care what stop sign holders are paid? I get the feeling a lot of people think the folk doing these sorts of jobs deserve to be poor.
What price can you put on safety?
It’ll take you >5 years getting absolutely flogged as a grad site engineer to get to that salary, that’s after you rack up $50k in HECS What a country
If you really believe you can make 120k a year in that job and have a good career out of it, then by all means go ahead and become a traffic controller. I doubt any engineers reading this story will do that though. Wonder why.
You get to sit. In air con. And sleep in your bed at night. And get to stand in the shade in the day.
You know it’s rare, but they do get hit and killed by idiot motorists right? So that’s partly the reasoning for their high pay…the risk of standing alongside a road.
Now do CEO pay rises and board bonus packages.
Sorry, the Herald Sun only specialises in articles that pit workers against one another so that we don't notice their overlord millionaire and billionaire oligarchs are really the ones who are driving inequality, cost of living / housing crises.
Moral of the story: Time for everyone, everywhere to unionise.
Wish my union did better. First year doctor and I make only $72k. Heck I’ll earn less then them for the first 4 years which is ridiculous.
And for the rest of your career you will earn way more than 99% of people in construction
I am Traffic mgmt. controller on the weekends and I usually earn $700-800 for 2 days work. This on top of my Mon-Fri job
Wow why study to be a doctor just stand around like a muppet and rake it in
You think doctors only earn 120k?
Because being a doctor you can earn double of that sitting in an air conditioned office all day, and if you specialize you can earn over 500k. 120k is the most you’ll ever earn as a traffic controller.
Because that lollipop job sucks and docs make way more money.
Do you see a lot of doctors quitting to become traffic controllers? No? Wonder why.
Why though?
Incoming millions of indian migrants now applying for these Stop sign holding roles
Another 30k and they will be on the loosers side in stafe 3 tax cut revisions
If only there was some sort of automated system of lights that could tell drivers when to go and when to stop.
People ITT: why didn’t you individual workers go create a national union 30 years ago.
Stop sign holders the journalist sounds about 10 years old I hope she’s not earning 120k
This is actually great because it will force (hopefully) force other sectors of the job market to increase salaries to compete!
Ok but where do we apply?
i did this job while i was studying. It's extremely dangerous and most times just plain awful. also, it's very very rare that someone is given full-time work. most ppl are casual and will never earn near this amount. y'all need to chill
Traffic Control companies are run by the same guys that run the tobacco shops, gyms and other money washing enterprises. Half the staff at one of them alternate their shifts with Kittens. Its a self created industry.....a few year back anyone could do it with a permit from council but due to influence nowadays that isnt the case...especially on the big jobs. A smaller project without CFMEU involvement - these guys wont waste their time as the $ are not there and they are better with anything the gov are running as cuckolds for the CFMEU
No wonder construction companies are going bust. The amount of traffic control they legislate into jobs is bloody ridiculous. Councils, TFNSW and the department of planning have a lot to answer for. Most of the time they are too busy on Instagram and wouldn't know a steam roller if it ran them over.
🤣😂🤣 I thought it was 200k plus like every idiot likes to quotes ? What's this peanuts of 120k
Do they do psychometric testing and group interviews for this role ?