Loco Division Members win redundancy appeal against Pacific National

After a long hard fight the seven locomotive drivers represented by the RTBU NSW Locomotive Division have won an appeal against Pacific National (PN) after being made redundant in July 2015.

After losing their jobs due to PN’s claims that there had been a fall in demand for grain exports and a loss of contracts, the FWC Commission rejected the loco drivers unfair dismissal claims and determined that the redundancies were genuine.

In response the loco drivers argued that the FWC had failed to properly consider whether redeployment was reasonable, whether the drivers might be redeployed to positions they were capable of performing and whether “redundancy swaps” (with other PN employees) were a reasonable course of action.

Loco Drivers also argued that PN knew full well that positions would become available for them and knew the capacity of the redundant employees to perform the roles.

In a decision which has delighted the RTBU NSW Loco Division and loco drivers, the FWC rejected PN’s claims that the dismissals were genuine redundancies and remitted their unfair dismissal applications to for re-hearing.

While this saga is far from over we celebrate this important victory and wish the locomotive drivers every success for the future battles ahead.