Sydney Trains and NSW TrainLink workers have voted narrowly in favour of new enterprise agreements, following a dramatic start to the year which included protracted negotiations between the rail union and employers.
The Rail Tram and Bus Union over the weekend said 52.8% of Sydney Trains workers who voted in a recent postal ballot were in favour of the latest enterprise agreement. 50.8% of NSW Trains respondents voted yes for their agreement.
The results mean the agreements will now be submitted to the Fair Work Commission for approval.
But RTBU NSW secretary Alex Claassens said the narrow margins by which the agreements passed was evidence NSW transport minister Andrew Constance has “completely lost the respect and trust” of workers.
“The agreement[s] will now go to the Fair Work Commission, and it’s good that at least now workers have some certainty around their working conditions and wages,” he said.
“What’s disappointing is the stress the Transport Minister forced everyone to go through to reach this point.
“The results were very tight. There’s a large percentage of the workforce still very unhappy with the transport minister’s offer and the approach he’s taken throughout the process.”
The union has expressed its disdain for Constance on several occasions this year. The union feels the minister has tried to discredit their push for better conditions, by talking only about high demands for wage growth.
“This [vote] is far from a sign that workers are happy with the way the transport minister is managing our transport system,” Claassens said.
“The train timetable debacle, the privatisation of our essential services, the constant attacks on the integrity of the workforce – the voting up on the enterprise agreement doesn’t resolve these issues.”
Claassens said Constance “has a lot of work to do” if he’d like to win back the faith of the workforce and commuters.
“The transport minister should be looking at this result and asking himself what he’s going to do to fix this mess he’s got himself into,” he said.
“Workers have had to fight tooth and nail to get to this point. We now have an offer that has been voted up and will be put to the Fair Work Commission, but this clearly isn’t a ringing endorsement of the agreement.”