While Coalition State Governments are continuing with their privatisation agenda, it’s a different story over in Western Australia.
Minister for Transport Rita Saffioti MLA has announced that the State Government would bring Customer Service Officer jobs on-board the Prospector and Avon-Link/Merredin TransWA rail services, which are currently outsourced private contractor Delron, back in-house.
This is a huge win for workers in those jobs, with the contract currently covering 18 permanent part-time employees, who will now get the benefits and security of public sector employment.
WA PTA Branch Secretary Josh Dekuyer said the Branch strongly believed in the value of stable, well-managed and well-paid public sector employment and the provision of public sector passenger services.
“In 2019, the PTA Branch targeted transitioning all on-train staff on TransWA services to public sector positions of employment, by the end of the term of the contract, slated for March 2022,” Josh said.
“Since then we’ve been lobbying the State Government to make sure they understood how important this was to our members, and to the communities they live in.
“For the workers involved, this means better security, better pay and a superior position to be serviced by the Industrial Relations system of WA, rather than subject to Federal system limitations and political whims.”
“The RTBU will be engaging in Enterprise Bargaining for the TransWA section of the Public Transport Authority shortly and we will be aiming to preserve conditions and advance the needs of these members under the Agreement they will be part of, come February 2021.”
THE PUBLIC GOOD
The WA PTA Branch has been working closely with other unions to highlight the prominent and positive role that the public sector workforce plays in the lives of Western Australians through the Unions WA The Public Good campaign.
Josh Dekuyer said the campaign had been steadily building, and he was confident that the State Government’s decision to bring these rail workers back in-house was a sign of things to come.
“The WA Government’s acknowledgement of the superiority of public sector employment should not end here – we now need to build momentum to see more jobs brought back into the public system.”
Congratulations to everyone involved!
