Transport for NSW award update - Aug 2019 (PDF version)

The PSA is happy to confirm that, after a long negotiation, there is now an in-principle agreement between the combined unions and TfNSW on the Transport for NSW & Sydney Metro Salaries & Conditions of Employment Award 2019.

This negotiation has been affected in-part by the dissolution of the RMS and the amalgamation of functions into TfNSW proper. This is in part one of the reason why the negotiations have taken so long. There are a number of changes to the TfNSW & Sydney Metro Award as a consequence of this negotiation process that members should be aware of. Many of them are cosmetic in nature but there are also some significant changes.

The combined unions began with a considerably large ‘Log of Claims’ that have been augmented since the re-election of NSW Government and the continuation of the Wages Cap of 2.5 per cent.

The changes to the current TfNSW Award are:

1. The Transport for NSW & Sydney Metro Salaries & Conditions of Employment Award 2019 will be a 2-year Award with salary and applicable allowances increases of 2.5% per annum. This is opposed to the current 1-year agreements for all other Crown Employees Awards. The Awards will be backdated to come into effect for 1 July 2019 with back payment of salaries to the first full pay from 1 July.
2. Inclusion of Sydney Metro. Sydney Metro Statutory Authority (SMSA) was established via legislation in June 2018. As part of that establishment, the terms and conditions of employment were set down in an agreement (2018 Determination) between the parties to include the terms of the TfNSW Award. This change simply reflects that previous nexus and ties the two groups together in the Transport Cluster allowing for greater mobility and redeployment opportunities into a new and expanding agency.
3. Consultation & Change Clause. Better workforce planning discussions, especially designed to flesh out contingent labour usage and spend.
4. Contractors & Labour Hire Clause. Not paying contingent labour Award rates.
5. Shift Work Clause for Group IT and Cargo Management. TfNSW had sought a non-specific shift working clause that could be adopted for all shift working provisions into the future. The PSA wouldn’t negotiate such a clause not knowing who this would pertain to. The clause is based upon the Transport Management Centre conditions that are already in operation and in the TfNSW Award. Group IT is yet to be recruited for and Cargo Management has only one member and their Personalised Salary will be grandfathered. Cargo Management already have operations that run in tandem with TMC conditions.
6. Altruistic Surrogacy Leave. New Altruistic Surrogacy Leave with the same entitlements as Adoption Leave
7. Out-of-Home-Care Leave. Including provisions from the Premier’s Memorandum into the Award.
8. Domestic Violence Leave. Significantly stronger Domestic Violence Leave clause, including an increase to 10 days leave per calendar year
9. Flexible Working Hours Agreement.

• Clause 10 agreement.
• When in operation, the agreement overrides the current Award provisions.
• 12-week settlement period.
• An increase in the amount of flex days staff can accrue from 12 per year to 24 per year. Can accrue up to 6 whole days in a settlement period.
• Can be taken consecutively if operationally convenient.
• A change in the current bandwidth to 6:00am – 8:00pm from 7:00am – 7:00pm.
• Protections for being directed to work at the extremes of the bandwidth, namely overtime.
• Ability to bank flex towards public sector shut down at Christmas.
• The only agreement that allows the banking of hours.

You can read the entirety of the proposed Award with track changes HERE.

You can read the Flexible Working Hours Agreement HERE.

As part of the democratic procedures within your union, the PSA is balloting members in order to seek endorsement and progress the application to ratification with the NSW Industrial Relations Commission. The PSA is balloting members via Survey Monkey. The balloting processes takes less than a minute. To access the survey click HERE.