Wages Cap smashed – here’s some more detail

Dear Members

Yesterday it was confirmed that you smashed the NSW Government’s unfair ‘wages cap’. This is the same cap that has kept public sector wages unfairly suppressed for the past decade and continues to hurt our nurses, teachers, paramedics, health workers, and firefighters. Members should take pride in this significant achievement.

And that’s on top of the commitment to deliver a safe New Intercity Fleet and over 90 other successful claims that we also won as part of the Sydney and NSW Trains enterprise agreement negotiations.

After many, many months of hard-fought negotiations RTBU members forced the NSW Government to deliver safe trains and decent wages and conditions.

The Fair Work Commission decision yesterday brings the pay rises under the agreement to 3.53% and 4.03% for the years of the agreement and provides additional backpay to 1 May 2022. It is confirmation that the NSW Government’s attempts to keep our wages under their ‘wages cap’ is unfair and unwarranted and should never apply to us.
Some key takeouts from the Commission decision were:
“beyond the general proposition that the 2022 [Wages] Policy represents the NSW Government’s desire to constrain generally growth in employee expenditure, it is not possible to identify any logical basis for the particular constraints which it imposes.”

“In short, the Rail Entities have never complied with the NSW Government’s wages policy.”

The decision wasn’t perfect. Obviously, it is disappointing that the Commission didn’t order any back pay for the period from 1 May 2021 to 1 May 2022. In this respect, the NSW Government and management told a mistruth to the Commission regarding what the purpose of the $4,500 was, and the Commission unfortunately accepted this misrepresentation. This is something we’re sure members will remember when it comes to the next bargain early next year.
Further, it is also disappointing that the Commission decided against providing a hazardous waste allowance for Customer Service Attendants (CSAs). In this respect the Commission concluded:

“we consider that this work [hazardous waste cleaning] is already encompassed in the remuneration paid to CSAs and that it would be inequitable and impractical to pass on any component of the HSC Allowance to CSAs.”

Both the above elements of the decision are not what we expected, but when you put the entire bargain into perspective with wage rises above the wages cap and over 90 improved or new conditions, it was undoubtedly a win across the board.

You can view a copy of the full decision here.

The NSW Government threw everything it had at us for over 18 months, but in the end RTBU members delivered for each other, their families and the community.

The unity of the RTBU membership throughout this process has been unparalleled. Together we stood up for what was right, even when the going got tough, and the result is safer trains and a fair agreement.

Congratulations again. The NSW Coalition Government said we didn’t deserve this – but they were wrong. On March 25 – remember how they treated us and put their candidates last on your ballot papers.
In unity,

RTBU NSW

Issued & authorised by Alex Claassens, Secretary, Rail, Tram and Bus Union – NSW Branch
Level 4, 321 Pitt Street,
Sydney NSW 2000
Tel: (02) 92642511
nswho@rtbu-nsw.asn.au
www.rtbu-nsw.asn.au

11 March 2023