VICTORIA. — GEO Group (Australia) manages two privatised Victorian prisons, Ravehall in metropolitan Melbourne and Fulham, near Sale, with workers today going on strike, demanding that GEO pay proper Australian wages, rather than treating their Australian employees like GEO Group treats their American employees.
More than 200 prison officers are expected to walk off the job. As these prisons will be placed ‘in lockdown’, inmates are entitled to request four days off their sentence for every day the prison remains, or goes into, lockdown.
GEO Group’s parent company, GEO (US) runs the US ICE detention gulags on behalf of US President Donald Trump’s Republican Party ICE Gestapo. GEO Group (Australia) failed in a bid to stop the strike action through the Fair Work Commission.
Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU ) secretary Jiselle Hanna said workers were fighting for an 18 per cent pay rise over three years.
“GEO needs to realise this isn’t America. [Australian] Workers have rights, and their scare tactics won’t work here.
“These are some of the hardest-working but lowest-paid people in Victoria. They are not asking for much, especially in the context of working for a multi-million-dollar company,” she said.
GEO Group prison guards walked off the job between 6am and 11am and will walk off the job again tonight between 6pm to 11pm.
