Sydney Trains Announce Massive Cuts in Employee Numbers

Bulletin 34 – 2016

TO: All RTBU Members,

At a time when the State Government continues to hire Senior Executives on obscene Salary packages to run Transport NSW, including Sydney Trains and Sydney Trains’ extensive use of Contract Labour Hire, at grossly inflated rates, Sydney Trains announce further cuts to permanent employees’ positions.

Sydney Trains rationale for this latest attack on permanent employees is based on Government Budgetary requirements.

Yesterday Sydney Trains Management advised the Rail Unions that they intend to seek Expressions of Interest (EOIs) in Voluntary Redundancy (V/R) from target groups of employees. Sydney Trains’ presentation indicated that the targeted groups of employees totalled 2,400 “non-frontline” positions.

The targeted groups are:

Corporate and Business Support Roles:

• Embedded support roles in: Rostering, Logistics, Planning, Estimating, Coordination Assurance, Contract Management, Standards, Performance and Reporting
• Positions in Corporate Support Directorates: SEQR, People and Communications, Finance and Corporate Services, Planning and Portfolio Delivery
• Administration and Support positions in ALL Directorates

Professional Support Roles:

• Professional Support Engineers
• Facility Managers
• Technical Specialists
• Systems Support
• Asset Planners and Managers

Customer Service and Operations Directorate Roles:

• Station Customer Managers
• Station Duty Managers
• Area Managers
• Operations Shift Managers

Due to conflicting and confusing information about other roles Sydney Trains are to provide details to the Unions about other specific supervisory roles in the Operations Division and Trains Crewing that may be included in this process.

The RTBU made our objections to this latest round of staff cuts quite clear to Sydney Trains Management, stating that we oppose any and all staff cuts.

Our objection, particularly in relation to any proposal to cut Office Administrative roles and Station Duty Managers was made emphatically clear to Sydney Trains Management.  These areas have already suffered significant cuts. FACT – Sydney Trains has only just completed the latest round of the Station Staff Reviews at all Sydney Trains Stations, which cut staffing levels, based on Sydney Trains’ own business cases, to an all-time low.

Sydney Trains propose to facilitate the EOI process through the internal E-Mail system commencing 19^th September and closing 7^th October.