Rail and tram workers draw a line in the sand

Members of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union are preparing to halt Melbourne’s train network after 98 percent approved strike action as part of enterprise bargaining. Tram workers who are bargaining with Yarra Trams will also join the four-hour stoppage on 21 August. It will be the first such strike since 1997.

It has been clear from the start of bargaining that Metro Trains is not interested in negotiating. It came to the table only after the union obtained a Fair Work order forcing it to recognise that a majority of its workers wanted to negotiate.

Since then, the company has more than once cancelled meetings, walked out of meetings and refused to release delegates from work to attend.

Metro Trains is a private consortium of rail and construction businesses including Hong Kong-based MTR Corporation and Australian companies John Holland and UGL Rail. While media coverage of our dispute has highlighted the comparatively good wages of many rail workers, it has hardly mentioned that this multinational conglomerate is swimming in money. Since taking over the franchise in 2009, MTR has reported profits in excess of $235 million.

And who made these profits? That would be us: the workers who drive the trains, operate the control rooms and signals, staff the stations, sell the tickets and ensure safety on the network.

As a delegate, when I held meetings and visited stations during the protected action ballot “vote yes” campaign, I barely had to make an argument. The resentment was palpable in every station, every signal box and every depot we visited.

Metro workers are sick of being treated like dogs, sick of being interrogated for taking a sick day, sick of Metro always trying to reinterpret our current agreement to avoid giving us our entitlements. We’re sick of management’s attempts to pit new staff against old and to create hostility between different grades.

It is true that many of our conditions and rates of pay are the envy of workers in other industries. These have been hard fought for, and we are not about to hand them back. Like many workers across the country, we have watched our enterprise agreements get progressively worse over the last decade, with conditions being stripped back and pay rises falling.

The latest proposed enterprise agreement that the company handed to the union had lines drawn through the majority of train drivers’ rostering conditions. Key among these is the requirement that in a single shift, train drivers drive no more than 200km and not more than twice on the same line. These are crucial safety conditions.

The company also wants to cut hours and overtime penalty rates for part-timers, while uncapping the hours full-timers can work. It has suggested that rail workers may be required to work 12-hour shifts on ordinary rates.

The union is asking for the introduction of trauma leave for rail staff who are required to attend scenes where passengers have been fatally injured. The company has flatly refused. The union is also seeking the reintroduction of first aid training for station staff. In the past, all new station staff received this training, but Metro has progressively chipped away at the policy.

Metro rail workers are now left with what we consider to be the bare minimum. We have nothing to bargain off and won’t countenance this while Metro continues to make massive profits off our labour. There is a very strong feeling that now is the time to draw a line in the sand. If we don’t fight, we risk losing many important conditions, and we send a signal to the government and the company that we can be pushed around.