Member Update: July 29, 2022

Dear Members,

In Newcastle, we're still in the process of going over the proposed Enterprise Agreement from Keolis Downer Hunter. Our industrial officer has found some legislative changes that affect the wording of clauses and we are waiting for KDH's response to our proposed changes.

Enterprise Agreement negotiations are ongoing at CMET, Region 7, Newcastle and Region 6. Since the last bulletins, not much has changed except for Region 7 which has an article below. Other negotiations will be reported on after their next respective meetings.

In the tram world, there have been many things going on this past week. Our delegate has raised concerns over the reintroduction of the crack plagued Urbos 3 shuttles on the L1 with a meeting to be held on our safety concerns. Members at Randwick are advised to keep a lookout for an expression of interest in the next fortnight for them to nominate to become the workplace delegate. Negotiations will commence shortly with Keolis Downer Hunter to replace the the greenfield agreements at Wickham trams.

We hope that you continue to stay safe and well.

Pyrmont Trams Urbos 3 shuttles

Transdev will be reintroducing the crack plagued Urbos 3 to Line 1 operations to act as a shuttle service between Central and Lilyfield. The local delegate raised issues and it soon became clear that the company had not fulfilled its responsibilities to consult with affected workers they wanted to operate these LRVs, or adequately done a Risk Assessment around their introduction.

Following a meeting today, several items were settled on.

1.    A meeting will be arranged ASAP for the HSR to put forward what the union considers to be serious safety issues. This meeting will also address streamlining the delivery of work instructions so workers are adequately informed about their responsibilities on the alignment day to day.

2.    The dispute around consultation for the new service has been withdrawn.

3.    Remuneration for future dual operation will be negotiated.

A bulletin will go out to members next week as these meetings come to pass and we can report back outcomes, but for now, the rollout of the shuttle service will kick off Monday as planned.

Newcastle buses EA update

We'd like to thank members for their patience over the past few weeks as we continue to go over the proposed Enterprise Agreement from Keolis Downer Hunter. 

Our industrial officer Lizanne identified some legislative changes that affect the wording of some clauses and has highlighted these to Keolis Downer Hunter. We are awaiting Keolis Downer Hunter's response to these changes and our subsequent rewording of these clauses. Once these changes have been made to the unions satisfaction, the company should be putting the agreement out for a vote.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to speak to your delegate. The lengthy time is frustrating but we want to make sure we get the deal which is in the best interests of our members before it goes to vote.

Randwick trams

An expression of interest will go out in the next two weeks for tram members in Randwick to nominate for workplace delegate. If more than one person nominates for the role, a ballot will be held.

We'd like to thank Tim Robinson for his efforts as delegate and wish him the best for his future endeavours.

Wickham trams

A big thank you to Dave Jackson, who is stepping down from his role as workplace delegate, for guiding the ship and wishing him all the best outside of his role with KDH.

Previous workplace delegate Jan Aalto has put his hand up once again to represent workers and will be part of the negotiating committee in upcoming talks to replace the current greenfield agreements at Wickham trams.

Region 7 negotiations

We've now finalised outlining our general issues to Busways with their proposed Enterprise Agreement. The next step is for the company to get back to us with their position on the same items, after that we can get into the nuts and bolts of each issue and work through them It seems like there is not much that we won’t be able to find a middle ground on and if this continues, we’re confident that we can negotiate a decent outcome.

Members should remember that the company ALREADY HAS A TWO-TIERED WORKPLACE IN EFFECT. It is crucial if we don’t want to follow the Region 6 experience, that we do come to a negotiated outcome. As we’ve said before, we’re not going to be able to keep everything we had in the State Award, but the big-ticket items our members have said they want to keep will be there.

The company has said they want this done by the end of the year at the latest and so far they’ve stuck to that timeline.

Region 8 payroll issues

Today we met with KDNB and the process seems to have picked up pace. The full list of payment types has been compiled and at the request of the RTBU, will be compared to the STA Payroll Manual to pick up any discrepancies.

While the union has been helping where we can ultimately, it’s up to the company to get this right. They have a HASTUS expert coming next week from overseas to work with their payroll and work out what’s going on. They have estimated that from then until problems are identified, fixed, tested and the solution finally rolled out would likely take 3 months. In the meantime, the audit will proceed as requested over the next few weeks.

The union made it clear today that while we have worked co-operatively to get the Enterprise Agreement across, the inability of the company to get the simple transaction of labour for wages right, cannot be allowed to continue.

It doesn’t matter that we’re all frustrated, it doesn’t even matter what’s being done to fix it at this point, what matters is DELIVERING A RESULT. If they can’t do that from this process then all bets are off.

Region 9 payroll issues

As we are in Region 8 in the Northern Beaches with Keolis Downer, the RTBU has been working to try and help the company fix their payroll issues. While we don’t control the company, we’ll obviously be doing everything we can behind the scenes to help reach a resolution that benefit members.

Members will now see the conversion of the decimal value for hours and minutes into the time value. That means instead of for example, 7.6, you’ll also see 7 hrs 36mins. This will help workers decipher the payslip and log any issues with the company.

At the request of the Union, the company now has the system producing a query number. We want workers to be able to have a reference number for their issues so they can check on logged problems as well as keep track of multiple reported issues. TJHB reported that they are and are working on automating this with input from Transdev staff overseas, hopefully we get there sooner rather than later.

The gold standard remains having a daily breakdown of earnings displayed clearly on your payslip and that’s what we’re trying to work towards.

Delegate Training

The latest group of members from all divisions of the RTBU have just taken part in Level 1 delegate training, with six participants from our division.

The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and we'd like to extend a really big thank you to Wayne Moody for providing the excellent training!

It's great to see so many people willing to put up their hands to represent other members in the workplace.

We look forward to seeing these delegates out and about in the depots, putting into place the benefits of their training which will help them in looking after member's interests. Please make sure you offer them your full support!

In solidarity, 

David Babineau and Daniel Jaggers