Some records are just there to be broken and Aurizon has been doing spectacularly well in moving more coal and accumulating unprecedented profits.

There are other records that shouldn’t be broken. Aurizon seem to want to break records as far as mean and tricky employers go. Like a broken record they send circular after circular attacking the RTBU for standing up for members. They hate that we won’t bow down and recommend members accept a wholesale reduction in conditions.

Some records are just there to be broken and Aurizon has been doing spectacularly well in moving more coal and accumulating unprecedented profits.

There are other records that shouldn’t be broken. Aurizon seem to want to break records as far as mean and tricky employers go. Like a broken record they send circular after circular attacking the RTBU for standing up for members. They hate that we won’t bow down and recommend members accept a wholesale reduction in conditions.

They have said that they need so called modern agreements. They need them to compete they keep saying. They can’t get the RTBU to agree so they have to engage expensive lawyers to try and cancel your agreements using sterile court processes – they seem desperate to cancel the legally enforceable protections you have a right to expect.

They are trying to sell this as some sort of benefit to members. You have to wonder, do they think their workforce are stupid?

With fair and reasonable protections they are breaking tonnage records, their profits are soaring and share price is way up. They are proving our view every day: the view that says an employer can be successful and provide decent protections at the same time.

They have undertaken a large restructure which has affected all areas of their operation. All with the current protections in place.

The real question is why they would want to take this unprecedented action against their workforce? Why would they want to try and strip back the legally enforceable protections and instead provide a handful of guarantees for a limited amount of time?

The answer is actually quite simple.  It’s about greed and even more control than what they have.

They want to effectively dictate things like your roster and other work arrangements. They also want to remove fair and reasonable job protection measures.

For a company that has the hide to jack up it’s executive pay packets year after year to levels that should make them blush it’s hard to draw any other conclusion that for them, it’s about greed.

They run a company that is the envy of so many others. It’s  a success story if you measure things like profit, output and share price.

So much of a success that he Board and shareholders pay the Executive multi-million dollar salaries. More money than an ordinary person could dream about when they are slogging it away on a night shift, weekend or public holiday. 

Aurizon can spin it any way they want – their ploy to try and wind back conditions of employment should be seen for what it is – a con job. The RTBU won’t accept it and they can criticise us as much as they want. We will fight them in the courts, but we won’t be sitting around waiting for that.

Now that we’ve had a chance to talk with members about the outrageous plan to cancel the current Agreements, we will be seeking to recommence negotiations. The question for Aurizon will be plain. Are they prepared to stop playing with people’s lives and genuinely commence negotiations for fair and reasonable Agreements which don’t seek to wind back the protections members have a right to expect. If they are fair dinkum, they’ll end their games and start talking about a fair deal.