The latest STONZ SECA includes a significant revision to the Salary Scales. Historically the salary scale evolved in ways that created disparities & inequities within our workforce. RMOs on lower categories were paid more than those working more hours overall, and RMOs working rosters with a high prevalence of unsocial hours. To fix these it has meant a framework re-design and an application of a differential pay deal that varies for individual members by category, step, and location.

For a small number of members, it did represent a zero pay increase and where this has occurred we have negotiated income protection clauses. The changes made now mean that the new salary scales can be broken down into an hourly rate that stays the same as RMOs change categories.

This new agreement starts to fix some of the historic Pay Scale issues and goes some way toward catching our members up with a decade of decreasing hourly pay, which has been a goal of STONZ for a long time. We recognise that delivering a differential pay rise is significant and not done without due consideration. We thank our members for making the effort to understand the rationale and for their support.

We see this new SECA as being imperfect, but a step in the right direction for the RMO workforce and puts us in a strong position in our next round of bargaining as current disparities would continue to be ironed out, and pay complexity further reduced. The two-year term of the agreement means that we can move the whole workforce forward together in the next bargaining round.

Based on STONZ membership survey data approximately 97% of members received a pay rise and 90% received a pay rise of 14% or higher for the first year and a 18% average increase across 2-years.