ARTC NSW Infrastructure Enterprise Agreement Negotiations 2016 – Update #7

Bulletin 6 – 2017

To: All RTBU ARTC Infrastructure Maintenance Members,

This Bulletin will report on the EA negotiation meeting held on Tuesday, 21^st February 2017.

The RTBU and ARTC management continued to discuss issues around the ability for ARTC employees to get nationally recognised qualifications in both Certificate II and III of Rail Infrastructure.

Due to some of the changes presented to the RTBU negotiating team by ARTC potentially having negative financial impacts on RTBU members, there was robust discussions in regards to ARTC’s proposal.

The ARTC proposal about moving competencies from higher levels to lower ones remain a major concern for your negotiating team and ongoing discussions will be needed to alleviate these concerns.

Your negotiating team presented their view that scheduled career progression with a timeframe would alleviate most RTBU member issues. This would provide members with more clarity on training and the correct process in achieving higher levels within the classification.

ARTC has taken on board the advice from your EA representatives and will be providing further details in our next meeting scheduled for Wednesday, 8^th March 2017.

Even though the negotiations are currently focused on the review of the classification structure and career progression, serious progress has been made since we began negotiations in October 2016.

The success in negotiating improvements on the classification structure and members career progression, are paramount in these negotiations due to the ever increasing concerns from RTBU members around the network in regards to being stagnant in their progress.

Further negotiations regarding the remaining claims of RTBU members are on the agenda to begin discussions in the next meeting on Wednesday, 8^th March 2017.

Your negotiating team will continue to bargain in good faith with ARTC management around all issues raised by RTBU members.

We will continue to push for the items on your log of claims and ask that if any member is aware that someone is not receiving these bulletins, please get them to update their details so we can effectively communicate with all RTBU members during these EA negotiations.