Speed camera workers in Ireland overwhelmingly voted on Friday to go on strike. The Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU) represents 180,000 employees in a number of industries, but members photo radar van drivers say they are fed up with the way they have been treated by GoSafe Ireland, a consortium consisting of Australia's Redflex, Ireland's Spectra and France's Egis. The move would affect half of the consortium's employees.

"Our members have serious concerns relating to working conditions at the company," SIPTU organizer Brendan Carr said in the strike announcement. "The employees of GoSafe were frustrated in their attempts to negotiate with their employer as it refused to attend the conciliation services of the state."

Ireland's Minister for Justice and Equality, Charlie Flanagan has refused to intervene in the dispute. This is not the first time the photo ticketing industry has been accused of mistreating its employees. Redflex and its larger rival American Traffic Solutions (ATS, now Verra Mobility) were found by the California Department of Industrial Relations to be in violation of the state's prevailing wage laws (view ruling) in 2012 with lawsuits continuing into 2014 and 2017. An Australian employee in the Phoenix, Arizona, office of Redflex accused Karen Finley, the former head of the company's US operations, of anti-Australian bias. Finley was instead found guilty of corruption and bribery. She was released from prison on December 4, 2018.

"This dispute highlights the unacceptable practice of government departments issuing contracts for state services to companies who refuse to engage with the industrial relations bodies of the state," Carr said. "This is a completely unacceptable situation when such companies are in receipt of large amounts of public funds."

GoSafe operates under a five-year contract with the Irish government worth 115 million euros (US $128 million). The company runs a fleet of fifty vans issuing fully automated citations across a thousand locations. The Irish police force, the Garda Siochana, also operates a set of its own fixed speed cameras that would not be affected by the strike.