Secretary’s Report – 20 November 2020

Dear members,

It’s been a busy two weeks since the last Express.

Members who work for Pacific National, who are covered by the Intermodal Outsourced Agreement, last week commenced protected action ballot following their hugely successful protected action ballot result. Members held a 4-hour Stop Work meeting at Port Kembla earlier this week, and they commenced a 24-hour stoppage from 6pm yesterday (19/11), even after the Company sought an injunction late Wednesday in the Federal Court which was opposed by the Division. At time of writing, various forms of protected action will continue until 8:00am on Thursday 26 November, 2020.

A copy of the Newsflash and Federal Court order as sent to members last night can be found here.

Some good news in State Parliament, too, with NSW ALP Member, the Hon. Mark Buttigieg, successfully passing an Order for Papers regarding the NIF at the Legislative Council meeting last Wednesday. Because it passed, the NSW Government will now be required to produce the documents as outlined in the order for a Parliamentary standing committee.

We will continue to seek ways to hold NSW Trains, Transport for NSW, and the State Government accountable for their decisions and explicit disregard of the views of their employees.

In more NIF news, Members will have seen the NSW Trains document on in-cab cameras on the NIF dated 13 November 2020 and addressed to all NSW TrainLink train crew. Rest assured that the Locomotive Division in conjunction with the whole RTBU Branch strongly opposes and is currently disputing the use of an inward facing in-cab camera. Not only are the cameras not subject to rigorous controls of access and use, NSW Trains’ apparent dependence on making these cameras the main method of co-ordinating emergency situations is a gross insult to the mental and physical wellbeing of Members.

An independent safety review into the NIF, which was sent to all affected NSW Trains Members and publicly released yesterday, has also confirmed our fears about its safety. Read the Independent Safety Evaluation of the New Intercity Fleet here.

The only copy that the RTBU received was a redacted version due to Transport for NSW and NSW Trains gagging our safety validator by making him sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement, and he is therefore not allowed to pass on certain information to us. The RTBU has tried diligently and consistently to have this waived so we can receive and release an un-redacted version to you all.

Page 9 of the report includes an explanation from the Author that he was forced by TfNSW to sign the NDA in order to get access to documents related to the NIF, which he needed to see in order to write his report. The redactions to the report should not be taken as the Union holding back information as we are committed to giving all information we receive to our members and delegates.

The validator has assured us that the redacted information does not detract from the findings of the report, and that the redactions are in relation to commercial information from the private company used to build the train.

It’s ridiculous that in a democracy, a public authority like Transport for NSW would seek to hide information about matters of public interest like the introduction of a new train. We continue to make efforts to have Transport lift its gag and allow us and members see the information they’re hiding.

Further on that point, Transport for NSW have now had a safety report of their own for months, and are yet to release it. What are they hiding?

Back to PN now, and Pacific National Coal issued Lithgow employees a ‘definite decision’ to commence Stand Downs without pay for three months from Thursday 19 November and lasting four months, and a decision to effectively close Lithgow Depot. Their reason? Their customer is not providing any enough work. The RTBU believes this is absolutely not a valid reason for a Stand Down, as provided for under their Enterprise Agreement. Instead, this reeks of a loophole coercing employees into transferring depots so PN Coal can avoid distributing legitimate redundancy payments to its employees. We issued a dispute notice in response to this outlining legal precedence on how PN Coal is in breach of its EA obligations. Only in response to that has the Company now agreed to maintain the status quo whilst the dispute process takes place, and as such stand downs will not occur whilst the DSP is in place and affected members will continue to be paid.

And in state government news, NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet has announced the state budget, concocting a jobs mirage through billions in funding for transport. Around 56% of capital expenditure is supposedly going into transport projects over the next four years, including $28b to the Sydney Metro project, with plans to link the CBD to the new Western Sydney Airport. Take this with a grain of salt, especially as this follows on from the information we provided in the last Express that Mr. Perrottet undermined the value of public sector workers by defending the State Government’s 1.5% public sector wage cap and called it “generous”.

They cannot expect more work to be done with less pay. The crosshairs remain unjustly focused on essential workers. They should remember that Unions are powered by their Members, and we’ll make sure that setting these ridiculous wage caps will not be an easy feat.

In a coincidence to a number of headline news articles containing public relations disasters involving the NSW Government, and seemingly dodgy land deals involving TfNSW, Rodd Staples (TfNSW Head) abruptly announced his resignation this week (although at least 1 media outlet reported he was sacked), telling TfNSW Staff : “Transport is in my blood and is part of my family’s story, with my grandfather helping to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Now almost 100 years later, I’ve had the privilege of being part of this great organisation for over 15 years,”. It’s a pity that front line staff don’t feel treated as part of his family during his term, and whilst he may have had the privilege of being part of TfNSW, front line staff feel left out, undervalued and treated as nothing more than a means to a Government’s agenda irrespective of the impact on them or their time at work!

We hope you enjoy this edition of Loco Express.

In Solidarity,

Bob Hayden
RTBU Locomotive Division ​Secretary