Employees deliver a knockout blow to Railtrain Services Pty Ltd for Christmas

 On Monday 2nd December 2019, the RTBU & Railtrain Services Pty Ltd sat down to continue to negotiate the Hunter Ports Services EA including Pay rates and other outstanding conditions. As we were still apart on the pay rates, it was decided that the Locomotive Division would hold a meeting with our members to get their feedback and discuss the offer on the table. 

At the meeting of members on the 9th December 2019, the feedback was given that the money wasn’t good enough and needed to be discussed further. 

Railtrain Services subsequently wrote to the Locomotive Division to advise that they were sending their Draft EA including pay rates of $22.00 per hour and a copy of outstanding clauses to the Employees and were asking for feedback by 10am the next day. The Locomotive Division provided feedback on 12th December 2019 at around 2.13pm. 

At 6.16pm on Thursday 12 December 2019 we received an email from Railtrain Services announcing that “after due consideration Railtrain Services have made the decision that the Good Faith Bargaining has been exhausted. As such we will move to the Access Period tomorrow morning and run it for 7 clear days as per requirements”. This meant that the company was sending out their non-agreed EA to employees for a vote. 

This happened with Christmas approaching, with the voting being held from 08.00hrs on 21st December to 15.00hrs on 23rd December 2019. 

In a clear message back to the Company members voted 12 to Nil against the Company proposed EA. 

At time of writing we are yet to hear from Railtrain on their next steps and we will be strongly recommending a return to the table to finish the EA negotiations in Good Faith. 

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