Visit the 
Visit the Southern Shorthaul Railway EA negotiations begin again
Negotiations have recommenced after the correct “Notice of Representations Rights” were re-issued to members. At a meeting, which was held on 31 August 2017, the RTBU and SSR Management discussed the following;
- 1st book off day to be 30 hours – unacceptable from SSR’s point of view.
- Annual leave not be sign back on before 0600 hrs – agreed in principle.
- Annual leave rosters to be created – agreed in principle with new annual leave request forms.
- A minimum of 4 Book Off days to be posted per fortnight. Having this posted on the Master Roster was
- deemed unacceptable to the Board. The RTBU then questioned as to what if an employee doesn’t use all
- the allotted Book Off Days – awaiting on response.
- Definition of Multiple Booking off and appropriate benefits / allowances / timeframes. The purpose of
- Multiple Book Offs is to facilitate the operations of our regional services where it is unviable to have
- numerous underutilised regional depots – awaiting on SSR to provide details
- Timeframes for advising Lift Up / Lay back – Discussions surrounded the hours between 2200 and 0600
- where you will receive a call to commence work in an allotted timeframe
- Proper Home Depot with all facilities – SSR does not have any sign on offices. All sign on locations are
- classified as remote locations.
Possible sign on zones (6hrs) for TBA or Blank line Working – SSR to investigated, but nothing has happened as yet. - Duty Cycle of only 4 weeks – SSR want to set up a consultation process to review the Duty Cycle. This means that it may be reduced but it won’t increase. Awaiting feedback from members.
- Personal Carer’s Leave restriction for Doctor’s Certificate is too harsh – At a minimum in the event someone who is identified in clauses 31.3 & 31.4 is deemed by medical practitioner to require on-going care will mean that an initial medical certificate will be required.
- Working past 12 hrs entitling members to an Overtime Payment was deemed unacceptable to SSR
- Advice outside of advice times should be at overtime rates – agreed in principle to include the words (the
- employee can refuse to accept a job outside of the advice period)
- Pay increase plus pay increase to make from the no pay increase within the last EA – SSR are saying that your pay increase will only be CPI each year for 3 years.
The next meeting shall take place within a couple of weeks after both parties have had time to review proposed wording.