Media release: Railway workers disappointed at completely incorrect overtime leak

Reports today which suggest that train workers do not actually work much overtime are completely false, deliberately deceiving and yet another offensive swipe at the hard-working men and women of the railways, the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) said today.

Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) NSW Secretary, Alex Claassens, said that it is incredibly disappointing that completely incorrect and deliberately misleading statistics would be leaked to the media at a time when genuine negotiations to reach a fair enterprise agreement are meant to be taking place.

“How you can even suggest that railway workers aren’t being stretched to capacity given the chaos we’ve seen on the railways recently beggars belief,” Mr Claassens said.

“These statistics being reported today are completely false, misleading and downright offensive to the hard-working men and women who keep our railways ticking.

“Just last week, the Transport Minister was claiming that workers’ ban on working overtime was going to bring the city to its knees, and today the leaked report is claiming that workers hardly do any overtime. Which one is it, Andrew Constance?

“The NSW Government went to court in an attempt to stop workers from continuing the ban on overtime work because it was claimed that it would cripple our transport system.

“Ask anyone who works in the industry and you’ll hear the truth – Sydney’s rail service is completely reliant on workers doing large amounts of forced overtime.

“When railway workers announced we were refusing to work our rostered days off, it caused Sydney and NSW Trains to cancel large numbers of services and run a weekend timetable. How it can now be suggested that there’s barely any overtime being worked is puzzling.

“It is incredibly disappointing that the day before our next round of negotiations, someone has seen fit to leak such blatantly incorrect and deceiving information.

“Rather than looking for ways to try and discredit workers, the Transport Minister should be sitting down trying to negotiate an enterprise agreement that provide workers with fair wages and conditions.

“All railway workers want is to secure a fair enterprise agreement so we can get back to doing what we do best – keeping the railways ticking.

“You would hope, for everyone’s sake, the Transport Minister would be doing everything to try and find a reasonable solution to the current dispute rather than trying to offend the workforce.”