More detail on our EA offer

Dear team,

As you would have seen in the Secretary’s message yesterday, the NSW Government has put forward a renewed offer to the Combined Rail Unions on the Enterprise Agreements for Sydney Trains and NSW TrainLink. The renewed offer has a lot in it for our people and is a step towards resolving the industrial uncertainty and providing the customer service our communities need.

The offer

This offer includes acceptance of union requested changes to the Mariyung fleet operating model, and one Enterprise Agreement for both agencies. In addition to this, it also includes the wage offer shared last week.

Some of the benefits on offer for NSW TrainLink include:

Better leave entitlements and support for all employees

  • Compassionate / bereavement leave increase to 5 days per occurrence
  • Improved parental leave conditions including:
    • Access to 14 weeks paid parental leave for the parent with Primary Responsibility of the child (for employees with at least 40 weeks service).
    • Access to 2 weeks paid parental leave for the parent who does not have Primary Responsibility of the child and a further 12 weeks if the employee assumes Primary Responsibility for the care of the child (for employees with at least 40 weeks service).
    • Recognition of surrogacy.
    • Insertion of a miscarriage clause.
  • Clearer entitlements in the carer’s leave clause.
  • Recognition of Aboriginal Kinship in the provision of care.
  • A new follow up medical clause regarding attendance at follow up medical appointments for employees who are off roster.
  • An updated Critical Incident Clause which has details regarding direct and indirect exposure to incidents.
  • Improvements to the formerly named Termination on Medical Advice Procedure (now the Retirement on Medical Advice Procedure), including assessment for a broader range of jobs in the Transport Cluster and options around Employee’s returning to their former position.
  • More detailed provisions around support for employees who are victims of Domestic and Family Violence.

Providing more clarity about ways of working

  • New rostering principles, focused on specific requirements for rostering arrangements developed throughout the organisation.
  • The ADO clause has been updated to specify that requests to clear ADOs in a block will not be unreasonably refused by the Employer, subject to genuine business and operational requirements.

Keeping our employees safe

  • Changes to the WHS clause, focussed on maturing a safety culture, and other processes and systems including a fair and just culture, reporting culture, management of risks and clarity of roles, accountabilities and responsibilities.
  • A new clause on the prevention of sexual harassment in the workplace, including support for victims of sexual harassment.
  • Union involvement in Risk Assessments.

Improving our processes

  • Establishment of a framework to be applied during discipline matters.
  • Changes to the Discipline clause, including new clauses regarding the provision of the investigation report, consideration of working arrangements prior to suspension and notification of reasons for suspension.
  • When off duty at the initiative of the Employer, employees will be paid the average of their last 6 months worked.

In addition to these new provisions for all NSW TrainLink employees, the proposal includes an agreement that the unions will not prevent the rail entities from proposing the introduction of new technology and work practice changes to an affected work group for their consideration.

Additional role-specific benefits for NSW TrainLink employees

There are a variety of benefits to support various roles in NSW TrainLink. Highlights include:

  • Training to upskill all frontline staff with basic IT skills (8 hours training per employee)
  • Access to nationally accredited Cert IV qualifications for all our Drivers to recognise the work that they do
  • 20-min Crib Break for Intercity Guards
  • Lift up and Lay back for Intercity Drivers and Guards
  • Working On Book Off Day (WOBOD) payment for Drivers and Guards
  • Driver Cab allowance to be included in base pay
  • Guard Cab and Security allowance to be included in base pay
  • Drivers Over Time on a Saturday paid at double time after eight hours 
  • Removal of split shifts (for both Drivers and Guards)
  • Retention of master roster limits to changes
  • Regional Station Staff wage rates increased to the equivalent of Intercity Station Staff classification rates
  • Rostering Governance Committee to oversee the introduction of rostering guidelines and transfer procedures for Onboarders
  • Commitment to work with unions and our people during the life of the agreement to facilitate the customer facing model and changes for our Station Staff and Onboarders.

The unions are now considering the renewed offer. We will meet with them again today to further explain the detail of the offer and to work towards finalising an agreement for our people.

Protected Industrial Action

The NSW Government has requested unions withdraw all protected actions now that the revised offer has been provided for consideration. The union is yet to respond to this request, and at this stage the Protected Industrial Action notified for today and tomorrow will continue as notified.

I want to thank our people who are working incredibly hard to minimise the impacts to our staff, customers, and communities during this difficult time. We continue to work through the potential impacts to services, and will keep our staff and customers informed as soon as possible of any delays and cancellations.

I’ll keep you updated over the coming weeks as things progress and will also share more detail on what the renewed offer means for us at NSW TrainLink.

Please reach out to your leader should you have any questions, otherwise you can always contact the EA team NSWTLEA@transport.nsw.gov.au.

Stay safe, 

Dale

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