Loco TV – 28 May

In this edition of LocoTV hear about the NSW Government’s plans to remove staff car parking, the latest on the Rail Entities negotiations, the news on the PN redundancies and the upcoming 50 year reunion at Port Loco (21 June)

IMPORTANT NOTE – the Port Loco reunion is on 21 June.

1.

The government has started removing staff car parks from stations across the network – a move the Loco Division warns could have an impact on the on-time running of trains.

The Transport Minister recently confirmed that 1200 spots will progressively be taken away from workers and turned into commuter car parking.

The Loco Division says that improving car parking options for travellers should not be at the expense of workers who are expected to sign on and off at irregular hours in any 24 hour period.

The union says the Minister has taken the decision to disregard the safety of employees and potentially the on-time running of trains for the sake of some short-term political gain in an attempt to offset some of the recent bad media headlines affecting the government.

The union will be keeping a very close eye on the situation as it progresses.

2.

The Combined Rail Unions representatives met with Rail Entities management recently in an attempt to reduce the number of matters in dispute as part of the current EA negotiations.

Among the matters discussed were the facilitation clause, the forced redundancy clause, salary maintenance and the terms of the agreement.

The Rail Entities have also taken all classification specific items off the table for negotiation during these negotiations.

You can see the full details of those clauses on the Loco Express website.

The parties were due to report back to the Fair Work Commission on May 27^th. Stay tuned for updates.

3.

Drivers at Mortdale, Cronulla and Waterfall depots had a big safety win recently, with the crew winning the battle to maintain sufficient Review Road diagrams.

Sydney Trains had proposed to remove many of the current review road cross diagrams following the introduction of the timetable changes in June.

The move appeared to be an attempt by the company to separate sector one from other sectors.

The drivers’ pressure resulted in the company agreeing to allocate additional review road diagrams.

Congratulations to those depots for fighting to maintain your conditions.

4.

The RTBU is currently in dispute with Pacific National following the company’s moves to call for redundancies across its business divisions.

The union says Pacific National has shown a complete disregard not only for its workforce but also for the consultation processes in the enterprise agreements it signed. As a result, the union has been left with no choice but to begin dispute proceedings.

The union also claims the company has failed to provide evidence to show why the current redundancies are necessary.

Stay tuned for information as this issue progresses.

5.

And finally, the 50 year reunion of the Port Loco maintenance centre is coming up on 21 June.

The reunion will be held at the Illawarra Leagues Club in Wollongong and will be a great chance catch up with former and current workmates, so make sure you get along.

To grab your tickets, go to the Loco Express website.