RMS Listening Meeting Octagon Parramatta

RMS Octagon Parramatta Listening 9 Oct 2014 (PDF version)

Your union conducted two listening meetings at the RMS Octagon building on Thursday 9 October 2014. The meetings were attended by people from different areas within RMS.

Thank you to all the participants at the meetings. You provided your union with valuable information on issues in your workplace and provided ideas which are currently being collated for inclusion in the ongoing Defending Public Services campaign against job cuts, privatisation and threats to working conditions.

Issues

The meetings identified that as a direct result of job cuts, staff freezes, redundancies, restructures and outsourcing, there has been a negative impact on staff in RMS. Morale is low with excessive workloads and bullying and harassment issues.

There has been an irreplaceable loss of corporate and expert knowledge as a consequence of outsourcing of traditional public service engineering, maintenance and design roles from RMS.

Restructures and staff cuts have resulted in slower processing of information to trigger compliance and enforcement activities with the end result that public safety on our roads could be compromised.

Your union recognises that it is essential that the members are provided with the tools to face these issues in the workplace.

Where to now?

While the listening meetings raised some important issues, they also clearly demonstrated the importance of an organised and active workplace. The next step in the process is to establish a workplace organising committee at your workplace. Your union proposes to hold a meeting in November at your worksite where we will identify training needs to enable members to be empowered in the workplace.

In conjunction with members, we will propose to set a timetable for lunch and learn training sessions and quarterly meetings for your workplace organising committee.