'Overworked and undervalued' Victorian cops take action

Nearly 18,000 officers across the state began the action at 7am on Sunday after 99 per cent of Police Association of Victoria members who participated in a recent ballot voted to take industrial action.

The union and the police force have been locked in five months of negotiations over a new enterprise agreement for a four per cent pay rise and better working conditions, such as nine-hour shifts.

The previous agreement expired on Thursday.

Union secretary Wayne Gatt said the state's police officers were angry and frustrated that an improvement to pay and conditions still hadn't been resolved.

Police officers in Victoria were overworked and undervalued, he said.

"If the government wants to attack the bottom lines of my members' household, we'll attack theirs, by placing police cars beside the highest yielding speed cameras in the state to warn motorists to slow down before they are forced to contribute to the state's revenue," he said.

"Members will also be telling the government and the community how they're feeling, by scrawling messages on police vehicle windows about the challenges of the job and why they deserve to be paid for it."

Premier Jacinta Allan says the government won't intervene to break the deadlock between the union and Industrial Relations Victoria.

"The government has made very clear to the people sitting around the table that we expect these negotiations to be conducted in good faith," she told reporters on Sunday.

"Secondly, we want to see them concluded with a strong outcome."

The union is planning 19 simultaneous actions by officers as part of the industrial action.

Mr Gatt said union members were asking for reasonable pay and conditions and felt they had no choice but to take action after negotiations stalled.

"This is uncharacteristic behaviour for policing, but they feel so frustrated that they feel the need to communicate directly with the community in the only way they're allowed as police officers," he said.

"They're going to stop working for free and start claiming for the overtime that they should be permitted to."

Australian Associated Press