QUBE Enterprise Agreement Update

Negotiations for a new enterprise agreement have been ongoing since 2018. QUBE has sent out 2 approved agreement’s, which were not endorsed by the NSW RTBU Locomotive Division EA Team, and, as such, resulted in Members voting down both agreements.

When the last vote occurred in late February 2020, your EA Delegate Team gave discussions with QUBE Management one last try. During these discussions, the Delegate Team agreed to a better wage increase and asked that the document be sent out to Members to vote again.

The new offer included a 4 year deal with pay increases of 3% for years 1 and 2, and 3.5% for years 3 and 4. Although this was now an increase from a 3 year to 4 year agreement, the agreement was backdated to 1 April 2019, meaning that back-pay of 3% would have commenced from 1 April 2019 to 1 April 2020 and another 3% increase would apply from 1 April 2020, effectively raising wages 6% on approval. The revised Enterprise Agreement was ready shortly after this although QUBE have been holding on to it and not sending it out.

Late last Wednesday afternoon, QUBE sent an email to the NSW RTBU Locomotive Division, which contained a letter regarding the status of the proposed Enterprise Agreement. Within this letter, QUBE have used the current climate regarding the COVID-19 virus as an excuse to propose a wage freeze and to not proceeding with sending the proposed Agreement out for you to vote on.

This position from QUBE is outrageous as they are withholding an in-principle agreement and denying you the right to vote on the document. QUBE is an essential service that is still running trains and they are still making money. This is nothing more than an excuse to delay passing profits onto members.

We are now in the process of looking at what can be done legally to make sure you get the wage increases and working conditions you deserve. Once we confirm what can be done, we will advise you to determine which actions you would like to take. Remember that protected industrial action is still on the table as we are still in a bargaining period.

A copy of the letter is linked below.

Click here to download the full Newsflash.

Click here to see the letter.