Bulletin 19: Workplace Health and Safety

Over the past few months, through the diligent and unwavering pursuit of Workplace Health and Safety issues by RTBU Station Staff Delegates, WorkCover have been investigating Sydney Trains on (2) matters.  These matters are:

• The risk assessments and the processes carried out to conduct these risk assessments, during the Salespersons reform.
• The processes for the determination of:
  • Work Groups
  • Number of HSRs and the election processes
  • Establishment of WH&S Committees

The results of these investigations have unveiled “SERIOUS CONCERNS” by WorkCover for Sydney Trains’ compliance with the WH&S Act.

As a consequence of these findings Sydney Trains are now in deep discussions with Union Delegates and are working together to form (2) specific Work Committees to resolve these very serious concerns.

The first Work Committee is made up of Delegates from SDMs, CSAs and Cleaners (as Cleaners are now coming back to stations), and Management representatives.  This work group meets every Monday to negotiate and agree on the makeup of work groups as defined under the Act, the appropriate number of HSRs, and the establishment and charter for WH&S Committees.  This work committee is also working on a process to conduct joint Union/Management information briefings to facilitate a unified position and ensure a consistent message.

The second Work Committee of Delegates, from SDMs, CSAs, Cleaners, and Management representatives started meeting yesterday under the direction of a WorkCover Inspector.  The W/C Inspector set the ground rules for this Work Committee and the parameters for the risk assessments. One of the requirements set by the W/C Inspector was that there MUST be a Non-Custodial employee (an employee without managerial responsibility) i.e. a CSA and/or Cleaner as the point of contact and involved in the assessment. This meeting was also to determine and agree on (4) stations to conduct new “risk assessments”. This will include a station that has a good standard of safety controls and (3) other stations that represent questionable standards and have a record for violence and/or incidents.

The Stations selected are:

• Chatswood  (a good standard of safety controls)
• Blacktown
• Rockdale
• Central

The Non-Custodial employee for each station will be contacted by joint Union and Management representatives prior to the new risk assessment being carried out.  This is to ensure the employee can be open and honest in the discussions and to demonstrate that the process is about ensuring safety is first and foremost a shared concern.

REMEMBER YOUR SAFETY IS PARAMOUNT

The Union will keep members advised as to the progress of this issue.