WA's police union says "angry and betrayed" members will escalate industrial action if pay demands are not met, leaving the government facing a showdown over its broken election promise on public sector wages.
The union has told officers to issue cautions instead of fines for minor traffic and liquor offences and make themselves highly visible near speed cameras to warn motorists.
They also won't summons offenders to court until state budget day on September 7 and continue other work-to-rule action that started last month, including not being available after hours or for unauthorised overtime.
Serious offences like speeding will still be dealt with as usual and if people need officers, they will come immediately, commissioner Karl O'Callaghan said, adding he was satisfied public safety would not be compromised.
In March, the WA Labor government changed its wages policy, substituting a previous promise for a 1.5 per cent pay rise with a one-off $1000 increase, which is less for many workers.
The police action of not imposing on-the-spot fines would quickly run into the millions of dollars and hit the "hip pocket" of a government that is desperately trying to slash costs out of the public service, through merging departments and forcing out some of the highest paid bureaucrats.
Union president George Tilbury said the $1000 pay increase had been rejected by 88 per cent of members, 93 per cent of whom supported industrial action.
There were also plans for a "third phase of industrial action" he said, details of which he would not reveal but said police would never put people's safety at risk by striking.
"We've already dug the trenches and we're ready to go for as long as it takes," Mr Tilbury told ABC radio.
"My members are angry and they feel betrayed by this government."
Premier Mark McGowan say he cannot make an exemption to the wages policy for the police and then face similar demands from nurses, teachers and other public sector unions.
Mr Tilbury rejects that, saying the police union had already started negotiating when the government's wages policy was for a 1.5 per cent increase before the "goalposts were changed" and it should not be hit retrospectively.
Acting Premier Roger Cook denied the government had broken a key promise and said it was forced to cut the wage rises because "since the election there has been a significant deterioration in the state's finances".
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