Pacific National opening blast at families

By Greg Harvey, National Organiser

At the last session, on May 4, 2005, the company tabled its proposal for what it has termed "Multi-Sector Working" for Intermodal long haul corridors. Essentially the proposal involves three train crew being booked on for seven days on corridors Pacific National deems to be appropriate for this form of train crewing. There would only be one Driver in the Locomotive at any given time, but the company insisted that it is not Driver Only Relay. Instead, they say it is 'Single Driver Operation'. The other two Drivers would travel on the train in purpose built 'modules', with one sleeping and one resting. This proposed form of train crewing would not be restricted to remote locations. PN said that it may apply to the Melbourne - Perth, Sydney - Perth, Melbourne - Sydney corridors or "anywhere in between".

Pacific National wants to turn train crew into long-distance truck drivers, but the RTBU is determined to protect and improve the working conditions of members, who have families and other parts of their lives outside of work.

No clauses have been agreed at this stage, but there have been some 'in principle' agreements regarding aspects of some clauses. Both parties will continue to table their respective proposals and then going through the process of discussing and proposing changes to wording.

PN again expressed its strong desire to remove clauses it says have caused problems, because of interpretation, from the Agreement and put them into policy. The company has cited Rostering Principles, Hours of Work and Classification Structures as examples. The RTBU disagreed with PN's that the best way to fix a clause that may have caused problems is to remove it from the Agreement.

Throughout the negotiations so far, the company has repeated its view that it is looking after the interests of the share-holders of Pacific National. The RTBU has countered this by consistently reminding the company that the RTBU will ensure that the interests of its share-holders, the members of the RTBU, are of paramount importance in these negotiations.

PN's ambit

At the negotiating round on April 12-13, Pacific National flagged its intention to seek significant changes to a number of key clauses such as: Contract of Employment, Meal Breaks, Termination of Employment and Home Base And Sign-On/Sign Off Provisions.

Pacific National also flagged its intention to delete a number of key clauses from the EBA. These include:

• Use of Contract Labour and Labour Hire Agencies (it is not the company's intention to stop using this form of employment, merely to remove it from the Agreement),
• Driver Only Operations,
• Uniforms,
• Employee Payroll Deductions,
• Protective Clothing and Equipment,
• Right of Entry,
• Salary Maintenance,
• Income Continuance Insurance and
• Apprenticeships and Traineeships.

The company stated that it wants some of these clauses removed completely, while others would be retained as Policy matters.

The company also intends to introduce new clauses to the EBA including Salary Packaging and a clause which will enable them to recover overpayment of wages or salary. The RTBU does not have an issue with the introduction of salary Packaging (subject to further discussion of the detail), but made it clear to the company that if they got the payroll issues dealt with properly in the first place, there would be no need for a clause to recover overpaid wages / salary. The company again referred to employees "jerking them around".

Threshold issues for the RTBU

The RTBU informed the company that there are a number of issues that we see as 'threshold' issues for our members. Those include, but are not limited to: Contract of Employment, Career Paths and Classification Structures, Rostering Provisions, Remuneration and a single Enterprise Agreement covering all employees.

In an earlier round of negotiations the company stated that they will make determine whether they prefer a single EBA for all employees, or different EBAs for different Business Divisions. The RTBU made it very clear to the company that we will not under any circumstance entertain the concept of separate EBAs.