Austrac wound up, RTBU saves jobs

By Bob Hayden

The Rail Tram & Bus Union NSW Locomotive Division secured jobs for all 16 Austrac employees, and is pursuing their entitlements with the liquidator.

Due to the RTBU's efforts, all 16 employees began permanent jobs at Freight Australia Depots close to their previous Austrac Depots.

The RTBU succeeded in challenging the validity of the individual contracts which 10 of the 16 employees had been forced to sign in the last two years.

The workers were terminated on August 12 and told by the company to apply to the Federal Government for their entitlements - all unpaid wages, accumulated annual leave and long service leave, pay in lieu of notice and up to eight weeks redundancy pay.

This is less than their full entitlements.

Although Austrac Traction has assets, the RTBU has been advised that there is no way to access its funds to meet the workers' entitlements. But at least Austrac traction cannot start up a new rail business tomorrow, without an Enterprise Agreement, and without paying its former employees.

The RTBU had an EBA with Austrac and had been trying to renegotiate it for two years. Under the EBA, employees were entitled to 23 weeks redundancy pay, but under the Federal Government scheme the maximum they can receive is eight weeks. That's 15 weeks short.

New employees in the last two years have been told that they must sign an individual contract (Australian Workplace Agreement) if they want a job. It turns out that these AWAs were never sent to the Office of the Employment Advocate and so were never approved - and so these workers are also entitled to the benefits of the EBA.

On average, each AWA employee received $250 per week less than the EBA employees.

This is mainly because the AWA pay rate included annual leave and sick leave and Long Service Leave, and was still less than the EBA rate - which itself had not been adjusted for two years.

As well, superannuation for AWA employees was not paid between June 30 and August 12 this year.

To add to the confusion, AWA workers were paid for 'short shifts' and 'long shifts', rather than by the hour.

The result is that some of their time was worked for free, and that even the employee could not understand what they were being paid.