Secretary’s wrap

Among all the bad news at Pacific National Coal, we’ve recently been given a very welcomed, albeit small, dose of good news.

The company has announced that it won’t be going ahead with its planned forced redundancies, which is very welcomed. However, the voluntary redundancies already organised are still going ahead.

The company’s change of heart comes after it actually looked at its books and decided the future wasn’t as dire as it initially said it was going to be. Which doesn’t come as a surprise at all to the Loco Division who have been saying that since the company first used a downturn as an excuse to slash jobs.

The situation is still very serious at PN Coal, and we’re working closely with all affected members during this difficult period, but it’s great to get a bit of good news every now and then.

The good PN news doesn’t extend to the R&D division though, with management there recently deciding they don’t want to include the NSW Loco Division in the current PN Vic R&D enterprise agreement negotiations – even despite the fact the there are a number of NSW members covered by the Vic agreement.

We’ve lodged a dispute over the fact that the company has refused to involved NSW Loco – stay tuned for more on that.

Over at Sydney Trains and NSW Trains there’s a lot of discussion about iPads and iPhones for drivers. The Sydney Trains iPad roll-out is about to start, with the protocols for use having now been developed by management in consultation with the RTBU. NSW Trains is now also looking at a similar roll-out, with the possibility of issuing train crew with iPhones being floated. The Loco Division wants to make sure any potential issues are ironed out before crew are forced to use the devices, so a working group has been established to run through the proposal. Stay tuned.

And finally, the Loco Division is conducting an ‘Around the Tracks’ tour of a number of depots over the coming weeks. This is an opportunity to have a chat about any issues in your workplace and to hear about the union’s future plans.

Have a look at the article below to see the tour locations.

I trust you’ll enjoy this edition of Loco Express. Stay safe on the tracks.

Bob Hayden
Loco Division Secretary