NSW has retained its 12 hour shift limits for train drivers – a victory for drivers who stood up for workplace safety and common sense.

Today’s meeting of state transport ministers rejected the National Transport Commission’s proposal to remove the standard in NSW and have opted instead to review it after three years.

This is a big win for RTBU members who fought hard to maintain NSW’s current high safety standards during the process of developing the National Rail Safety Regulator.

The NTC’s proposal to remove 12 hour shift limits for NSW train drivers was always ridiculous and only had one possible outcome, increased fatigue risk for train drivers.

RTBU National Secretary, Bob Nanva who attended the meeting said, “While we’re happy that today’s meeting has decided to retain the standard in NSW, it should have been expanded to other states and territories.

“We will certainly be pushing to expand this standard when the review happens in three years time. Just as you wouldn’t drive a car for more than 12 hours, nor should you drive a train.

The meeting also considered workplace drug and alcohol testing, opting to leave testing methods in the hands of operators.

This is a terrible decision for the industry and will unfairly subject train drivers to urine tests, rather than the more accurate oral swab tests that have been introduced in many workplaces across the country.

To opt for an inferior drug and alcohol testing regime, which does nothing for workplace safety makes no sense, whilst also impinging on the civil liberties of public transport workers.

We have had a great win for rail safety in NSW today but there is still work to do and your union will continue advocating strongly on your behalf for a fair and safe workplace.

By Bob Nanva

Despite incredible advances in medical knowledge over the past century, our need to sleep largely remains a mystery. What we do know for certain, however, is that without it people die.

A complete absence of sleep will eventually kill you directly. A partial absence of sleep will lead to fatigue, which will create heightened safety risks and may kill you indirectly.

If you are operating a private vehicle, you run the risk of killing others as well. If you are operating public transport like a bus or plane or a train, then fatigue can claim many, many lives.

Managing the fatigue of the men and women who drive our trains, therefore, is hugely important.

New South Wales unfortunately received a huge wake-up call with the Waterfall disaster of 2003, in which a train derailed, killing seven on board, including the driver.

The subsequent McInerney Inquiry into the accident recommended that stricter controls around fatigue be developed. As a result, the NSW Parliament legislated to introduce maximum shift lengths of 12 hours for freight train drivers and nine hours for passenger train drivers.

At the time, people were rightly surprised that these caps were not already in place.

Although our understanding of fatigue is still littered with mystery and inconsistencies, most have little trouble grasping that you do no want train drivers to be working longer than nine hours for passengers and 12 hours for freight.

So the measure was introduced to a sigh of relief from the public, who wished to ensure that such an avoidable tragedy was not repeated.

This is why I am certain that most would be shocked to learn that moves are currently underway to scrap these maximum shift limits.

The National Transport Commission has recently released a report with recommendations for the harmonisation of rail safety laws across Australia.

Now, national harmonisation is a fine and worthy goal for a country the size of ours. It is unnecessary to have different standards applying in different states. Yet everyone who read and understood the findings of the McInerney Inquiry has been stunned by what the NTC has recommended.

It has advised that Australia’s first National Rail Safety Regulator should bring the entire country down to the lowest current state standards and scrap maximum shift limits for train drivers and other rail workers across the nation.

Instead of allowing other states to learn from New South Wales’s tragedy, New South Wales has instead been told to forget its lesson.

The move to scrap shift limits is an incredibly audacious one. After all, the US Federal Railroad administration, the European Union, Transport Canada, and countless other authorities across the globe regulate work hour limits in the name of safety.

So you would think that in making such a left-field call, the NTC would have some pretty rigorous evidence to back it.

Yet this is perhaps the most galling and baffling thing about the recommendation: the NTC does not even attempt to justify its position on a scientific basis.

It simply claims, without reference, that there is “little evidence to support differing fatigue related safety outcomes” if maximum work hours are placed in legislation, dusts its hands, and walks away.

That there is little evidence to support the safety benefits of maximum shift lengths would come as news to just about every fatigue expert on the planet.

To take just one example, a recent report compiled jointly by fatigue experts from Monash and Sydney Universities found that:

hours of service limits should be a central part of fatigue risk management within the rail industry, with additional fatigue risk management strategies incorporated within these limits.

The report goes on to explicitly point out that:

Recent studies capturing accident data spanning ample years/personnel/accident reports reveal unequivocal increases in accident risk with increased shift duration.

It seems a shame that the NTC would fail to check with these fatigue experts before making its incredible claim.

Of course, the commission points out that efficiencies can be achieved by allowing operators to regulate themselves when it comes to shift limits.

I am sure the NTC is right on this one. If you allow a train driver to work for more than 12 hours straight, the operation will inevitably become slightly cheaper – until there is an accident, that is.

What governments across Australia have to decide is whether they are willing to spin the wheel on safety to achieve these minor efficiencies for operators.

The Australia’s Transport Ministers is meeting on Thursday at the newly-formed Standing Council on Transport and Infrastructure (SCOTI) to assess the recommendations. They have the power to ensure that the NTC’s mistake remains an academic one.

First published on the The Drum ABC

You can comment on the original article here to show your support for maintaining NSW safety standards.

The Minister for Transport Gladys Berejiklian has reaffirmed the NSW Government’s view that fatigue management and drug and alcohol testing requirements currently in force in NSW for train drivers must not be relaxed when the Rail Safety National Regulator is established in January 2013.

RTBU NSW Locomotive Divisional Secretary, Robert Hayden said the union was pleased to see the NSW government reaffirm its commitment to existing NSW standards, but it was not yet clear whether maximum shift lengths would be protected and Ms Berejiklian’s support must include a firm commitment to maintain current prescribed hours of work and rest for drivers.

“The Minister’s announcement is a positive sign that the state government continues to understand the importance of maintaining existing protections for rail workers. It is a credit to NSW train drivers who have fought hard to ensure NSW’s strong rail safety laws are maintained.

“However, we are still waiting for confirmation that new national laws will not see maximum shift lengths scrapped in line with less stringent regulations in other states. The maximum shift lengths in NSW came directly out of recommendations made by the inquiries into the Glenbrook and Waterfall train disasters and drivers are very concerned about any new laws that would see safety in NSW go backwards.”

Mr Hayden said these matters would be the subject of discussion at a meeting in South Australia with state and federal transport ministers, which will decide the final design of the new laws.

“We welcome a consistent, national approach to safety in Australia but a nationwide shift in protocol should be pitched at the highest possible safety standard. Drivers would be horrified to see the excellent standards that NSW has set for rail safety watered down.

“We urge the Minister to ensure her commitment to NSW’s fatigue management requirements includes maintaining current prescribed hours of work and rest for drivers.

“These are crucial regulations that keep our drivers and passengers safe.”

Read the Transport Minister’s media release and the RTBU’s response.

The rail industry is resorting to outright lies in order to discredit the RTBU and its opposition to the proposed scrapping of the 12-hour shift cap as part of the new Rail Safety National Law.

In response to comments by Bob Nanva RTBU National Secretary on ABC Radio National about the dangers of watering down rail safety protections, the rail industry has accused the union of “scaremongering”.

Australasian Railway Association (ARA) spokesman Bryan Nye claimed there are currently no train drivers in the network driving anywhere near 12 hours because all drivers’ EBA agreements have shift lengths far less than 12 hours.

“This is fundamentally wrong and misleading,” said Bob Hayden, NSW Loco Division Secretary. “Almost all our agreements have the facility for drivers to work 12-hour shifts and for the ARA to say anything different proves the comments are more to do with spin rather than fact.”

In fact excessive shift lengths were one of the main complaints the union was taking to employers.

“We have people out there doing shift lengths of not only 12 hours but 14 and at times more, and with one employer alone having regular multiple complaints about excessive shift lengths.

“If this is the deception being spread by the rail industry before the new laws are passed, just imagine what it’s going to be like if the laws are weakened and the industry is regulating itself in regards to shift lengths and safety?”

The rail industry’s desperate attack on the union indicates their concern that state and federal transport ministers may actually listen to the facts rather than spin and take the union’s valid safety fears seriously.

If the union’s position is upheld, the hard-won existing protections for workers will be maintained and employers will not be able to dictate safety regulations that suit their own bottom line.

Click to listen to the ABC interview with Bob Nanva and Dave Mathie – Fatigue Management_ABC_AM

Click to listen to the rail industry response on ABC radio

Have your say on fatigue by commenting below.

**This story has been updated here

The draft Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) covering hours of work and rest in the new Rail Safety National Law delivers a hammer blow to the safety and work-life balance of rail workers.

National Transport Commission (NTC) draft released this week recommends that the new Rail Safety National Law should not contain prescribed hours of work and rest for drivers.

Instead it prefers “operators to establish hours of work and rest through the risk-based approach, subject to consultative provisions and regulatory oversight.”

This means the current protective legislation in NSW, fought for by the RTBU, will be overridden. The law as it applies in New South Wales will change and will result in the removal of existing legislated hours of work and rest for drivers.

There is also the intention to repeal newly passed laws in Queensland that legislate mandatory maximum shift lengths before they even come into effect in 2013.

The bottom line is that if this proposal is passed into law it will lead to a lowering of safety standards. Pressure will mount to increase hours of work and reduce rest breaks to deliver employers greater flexibility, and this will have a devastating impact on workers’ family and social life.

In its deliberations RIS did not take into account the impacts on work-life balance, demonstrating that the priority driving the NTC is to increase “productivity” and “flexibility” for employers at the expense of workers’ safety and wellbeing.

The existing hybrid approach in NSW, where hours of works and rest breaks have been risk managed within a framework of safety-net hours for various categories of train drivers has worked extremely well. Most developed counties – Canada, USA and UK – also successfully use this hybrid approach.

NSW provisions also have an exemption clause for operators who want more flexibility, and special provisions for emergency working. As an indication of how well the system is working, there have only been three applications by employers for more flexible provisions over the last decade.

There have also been no complaints from employers, and workers have been able to actively participate in compliance and enforcement because the limits were clear to every one involved in the industry.

The other issue of deep concern to the RTBU is that the recommended guidance material for employers is to be based on the model used by the road-freight industry.

This model is completely unproven and has not been tried in any railway system or country in the world, and represents a dangerous backwards step from the current best practice regulation to worst practice.

The current road-transport model is incomprehensible, with both employers and unions unable to gauge the ramifications of the application of the model to the rail industry.

Unions were also not involved in the development of this model, with the NTC refusing delegates and employers the chance to explain their concerns about the guidance material.

The option recommended by the NTC will leave it up to operators to decide hours of work and rest without any clear boundaries in a process that will exclude of workers and their representatives.

What Can You Do?

It is crucial that RTBU members become involved in this fight. Your voice and the real story about rail safety needs to be heard by the NTC now because it has relied on academics and experts, rather than front line workers, in its decision-making process.

The NTC is fast-tracking the consultation process to be ready for the meeting of state transport ministers in May.

To show how serious the RTBU is about opposing these law changes, we need as many drivers as possible to turn up at the upcoming consultation forums in Sydney.

They will be held:

Tuesday March 6 (7pm – 9.30pm, Rydges World Square, 389 Pitt Street, Sydney NSW 2000).

Wednesday March 7 (9am – 11.30am, also at Rydges World Square)

To register for the forum go to http://emgevents.com/event/ntc/.

To read the full draft report:  Draft NRS RIS

Keep checking LocoExpress for updates and have your say about this important issue in the comments section of LocoExpress.

Thanks all the members who took the time to send a message to the State Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian voicing their concerns about the watering down of existing NSW fatigue protections under the proposed National Rail Safety laws.

We had a fantastic response to the campaign with more than 219 union members sending letters and Ms Berejiklian responding twice positively and personally to each letter.

In her reply she acknowledged that, while the aim of new national safety regulator was to cut red tape and improve productivity for industry, this should not be done at the expense of safety.

Ms Berejiklian also said that at a meeting of Transport Ministers in May this year she moved an amendment to a resolution requesting additional evidence on the proposed fatigue management system to satisfy herself that the new national regulator based in Adelaide would not reduce NSW rail safety standards.

The minister said she’d push for the new national fatigue requirements to have comparable safety outcomes to the current Rail Safety Act 2008 and Regulations that operate in NSW.

The draft Rail Safety National Law was approved by Transport and Infrastructure Chief Executives on September 23 and was considered by state and territory ministers at a November 4 meeting. The RTBU lobbied for a number of changes to the legislation and due to this lobbying and the failure of the national regulator’s Project Office to satisfy NSW fatigue concerns a decision on fatigue has been deferred to May 2012.

The RTBU will continue the campaign to ensure that the new laws do not dismantle the strong fatigue and safety protections, negotiated by the RTBU, that are currently in place in NSW.

The National Rail Safety Regulator will replace the seven existing state and territory authorities and will have oversight of operational policies and process, planning and reporting, training, education, research and safety promotion. From 2013, Rail Safety Investigation will be undertaken by the Australian Transport Safety Board working in a partnership agreement with the NSW accident investigator.

Currently NSW is the only state that has a confidential reporting system for rail workers and this will be expanded into a national scheme under the new arrangements.

To find out more, download the National Rail Safety Update here: NATIONAL RAIL SAFETY

The RTBU has submitted its response to the draft National Rail Safety Laws.

Detailing its concerns about elements of the proposed laws to the National Safety Commission, the union argues that a number of reforms are embracing a ‘race to the bottom’ approach by adopting the lowest state standards on several issues.

The co-regulatory approach to critical safety issues, which is driven by the desire for greater flexibility and less red tape, gives inadequate safety protections, and under a national process may bring about a regime of national inconsistency.

The union also contends that areas of fatigue management, drug and alcohol testing plus competency assessment, stakeholder consultation and a number of other critical safety areas in the draft laws are more likely to reduce rail safety standards than increase them.

The submission recommends that in order to raise standards in the rail industry, the development of strong, prescriptive national laws, under the  guidance of a well-resourced national regulator, is necessary.

The union will closely monitor feedback from the written submission and the public consultations held across Australia, and is awaiting the NTC’s response to RTBU concerns.

Download the entire submission here: RTBU Submission National Rail Safety Law

The new National Rail Safety laws are in the process of being drafted, but it’s rapidly becoming apparent that new laws are being skewed towards the interests of employers rather than workers – compromising the working conditions the union has fought hard to build, and crucially, workers’ safety.

The main issues are:

- Maximum shift lengths and minimum rest breaks are currently enshrined in law in NSW, operators are pushing for changes that will mean individual employers can set their own standards.

- Employers are hoping to entrench the cheaper, invasive and slow urine sample testing, rather than the instant, simple saliva swab testing.

- Until now competency standards have been set and assessed by an independent national body. Operators are pushing for these standards to be abolished and want to set the competencies themselves. This is a massive safety issue, which will lead to staff who may not be properly trained completing critical safety tasks.

Make sure your rights are protected by letting the bureaucrats drafting the laws, and the operators pushing for dangerous changes, know that your livelihood, safety and working conditions are not negotiable.

Send the message that these laws will not pass without the voices of front-line workers being heard.

To FIND OUT MORE about the proposed laws and what you can do to help make sure the laws are drafted in a fair and responsible way, download the FACT SHEET RTBU Fact Sheet.

Help the RTBU fight the decline in rail safety standards by completing the YOUR SAFETY IS AT RISK SURVEY: RTBU Survey July 2011.

To register for the upcoming RAIL SAFETY LAW INFORMATION FORUMS, go to http://locoexpress.com.au/national-rail-safety-law-information-forums-register-now.

The proposed new National Rail Safety Law may have a big impact on your hours of work and working time arrangements, particularly around fatigue rostering issues, currently contained in the RTBU’s Industrial Agreements and the underpinning Working Hours as contained in the NSW Rail Safety Act – Schedule 2. It is proposed to delete the schedule and allow employers to apply to the regulator for new working time arrangements.

The draft National Rail Safety Law and Regulations and Regulatory Impact Statement will be released publicly on July 18 on the National Transport Commission website.

To go with this the NTC and the National Rail Safety Regulator Project Office are conducting a series of information forums explaining the key aspects of the proposed law and Regulatory Impact Statement.

The forums will also explain how the Adelaide-based National Rail Safety Regulator will operate and, crucially how it will impact on ITSR’s operations in NSW. It will provide members with an opportunity to ask questions and seek further information.

This is a massive regulatory change from a state-based to a national system and the union has many reservations that our current strong NSW rail safety laws forged as a result of two Special Commissions of Inquiry, which have set a benchmark for rail safety over the last eight years, will be diluted.

The NTC has emphasised the importance of the public consultation process and in particular the feedback from rail safety workers, so it’s extremely important that members attend the forums if they can to find out exactly how the laws will affect them and to put forward their case against any weakening of NSW safety protections.

The NTC is on a tight schedule to push through the laws, but these forums and your feedback are essential to ensure that any changes that may negatively affect NSW members are not simply steamrolled through by the NTC and state and federal governments.

The RTBU urges members to attend. Please register via the links below, then email the Locomotive Division so we can coordinate numbers on the day and provide more information to members about issues that will be raised at the forums: nswloco@rtbu-nsw.asn.au.

Sydney Info Session #1:

Thursday 04 August

9am – 12:35pm

Hilton Sydney

488 George Street, Sydney, NSW 2000

Register here or call 1800 404 400

Sydney Info Session #2:

Thursday 04 August 2011

6pm – 9:35pm

Hilton Sydney

488 George Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000

Register here or call 1800 404 400

Newcastle

Friday 05 August 2011

1:30pm – 5:05pm

Newcastle City Hall

290 King Street, Newcastle NSW 2300

Register here or call 1800 404 400

Click here for information about sessions in other states.

Download the latest agenda here: NRSR information session agenda