Member Update: June 17, 2022

Dear Members,

There are updates on bargaining in this issue that would normally have gone out as individual bulletins as well. Due to the workload we haven’t, so see below for the latest!

Members in Newcastle will take industrial action from Monday, where no buses will operate for 24 hours. The following day, drivers will not operate the Bus Driver Console for an indefinite period. Inconveniencing the community is a last resort, but Keolis Downer is refusing to come to budge on our ask of 7 percent over two years. A bulletin was sent to members today, which you can read here.

The Fair Work Commission came out with their decision this week which affects different work groups differently, there’s a wrap of that below too including the decision on the 3 million + in backpay owed by Transit Systems to our Region 6 ex-STA drivers.

We hope that you continue to stay safe and well.

Newcastle industrial action

Newcastle bus drivers will take industrial action from Monday 20 June, following a breakdown in negotiations with Keolis Downer.

Buses will not run for 24 hours from 02:01 on Monday morning.

From 02:01 on Tuesday 21 June, there will be an indefinite ban on the logging into, and any other use of the Bus Driver Console. It is the union’s understanding that this action will not allow the Opal card readers to operate.

The company has flagged they have major concerns about drivers not operating the BDCs. This revolves around the fact that they have to provide TfNSW with the data the machines collect and TfNSW then uses that to measure KDH's performance across a variety of things like cancelled trips, complaints per 100k passengers, etc. TANSW will fine KDH quite heavily if KDH do not provide this information.

KDH has to give a day's notice to take actions against members, and Monday is a stoppage, not a partial work ban so this is treated differently. We expect KDH to respond early next week to the Opal ban, so members need to consider what course of action they would take in each of the above circumstances.

Understand, this is not designed to have anyone decide one way or another. The union will fight for as long as YOU want to. If the majority want to fight on regardless of consequence, then we will. If the majority seek a negotiated settlement at any point in time, then we will do that.

CMET log of claims

A link will be sent to CMET members to endorse the compiled Log of Claims via an online survey next Monday. That poll will be open for 24 hours and the result will be communicated to CMET Tuesday. Bargaining will kick off shortly after that.

I’m also happy to report that the Servicing Agreement between the RTBU and the CFMEU in Canberra is ready to be signed off on. Expect to see a CFMEU organiser in your workplace on our behalf soon! They won’t be doing the bargaining but are there to sign up new members, answer queries and support the local delegate with local knowledge.

A bulletin will follow the Log of Claims result.

Region 6 EA Update

The last meeting this week held on the 14^th of June was a little charged. Previously unions had presented a group of claims centred around unifying the rosters. The company was under the impression this was the extent of the claims following the bargaining reset and were none too happy to have received a list of over 130 other items.

We’ve worked through that, and the bargaining meetings will be primarily to deal with creating a single roster. This means having the same penalties and shift timings. We’ll never have a single roster unless this can be sorted out.

While that conversation is going to be the focus, we’ll continue to work through other items on the list in the background. That way the focus is where it should be but things aren’t getting left behind.

The next bargaining meeting hasn’t been set yet because we’re waiting on TSA to provide sample rosters and costings for shifts that unions have asked TSA to look at. Once we have those, we can meet again to discuss the results.

Region 7 Bargaining Update

As members are aware, we’ve working through the Busways offer and have now touched base with the company about a few of the clauses in their draft. This was an informal meeting to clarify some of the draft content rather than a proper bargaining meeting. They were receptive to our arguments and genuinely seem to want to work this out, which is good but the proof will be in the result. An example is the Absence Management Procedure clause being proposed. The union considers what was put forward to be too heavy handed and the company has agreed to some of our concerns. The result is that the union will be drafting a replacement clause for the company to consider.

Members need to remember, this isn’t going to be the STA Award, but something in between a normal private sector EA and what we had with STA. There are things they want to get rid of and there’s things we want to keep. At the moment it’s like going to buy a car and offering 10k for a 30k price tag. We’re negotiating and there’s not much point in explaining every single item and where it’s at because the outcome will be something different again.

As always, members will have the final say on the EA result.

Fair Work Commission decision

This week the FWC handed down its decision on the Annual Wage Review which decided if the minimum wage is going to be increased and if so, by how much. This is complicated for us because anyone covered by a Copied State Award is also included in this. Companies have the opportunity to argue against the increase and all 4 operators of the core Sydney bus regions did so. The affected workgroups are as follows-

Keolis Downer Northern Beaches- Maintenance
Busways- Bus Operators, Salaried, Maintenance
Transit Systems- Bus Operators, Salaried
Transdev john Holland Buses- Salaried, Maintenance

The RTBU, ASU and AMWU put in combined submissions on why the increase should apply, but the decision was to NOT pass on the minimum wage increase to these workgroups for several reasons.

Firstly, all workgroups are at above minimum wage rates. Secondly, most of these workgroups received a wage rise for this year. Thirdly, EA bargaining is either happening in all locations or planned to happen in the immediate future. The FWC decided that EA bargaining would deliver a fair wage rise.

The other decision the FWC panel considered was the back-pay of about $3.5 million owed to ex-STA employees in region 6 between 2019-2021 (financial years) that the RTBU identified in a federal court case last year. This is for ex-STA employees past and present, as long as they were employed during that period. Transit Systems submitted why they thought the company should not have to pay and again, the combined unions argued why they should. In the end the FWC ruled the company DOES have to pay this money back to its employees.

For employees who were NOT union members, they company will be reaching out to track down and pay affected workers. For workers who WERE union members, the RTBU will be doing this. The union will be leaving no stone unturned to reunite workers with any payment they are entitled to.

To make things even more complicated, it’s since come to light that the auditor who did the initial review of the underpayment applied the pay increases (the ones we got from the court) to the Industry Allowance. While traditionally, the Industry Allowance is indexed to the wage rises, the Minimum Wage increases (which gave us the last couple of pay rises) does NOT apply to allowances. This means there has effectively been some overpayment since rates were adjusted by the 2.5% last financial year and the 1.75% adjustment for the 2019-2021 period.

The company will be taking any overpayment out of the underpayment due, and the court and union are watching the process carefully.

In solidarity,

David Babineau and Daniel Jaggers