Contracting dirty business on NSW railways

Contracting dirty business on NSW railways

By Peter Perkins

In January, the NSW branch of the Public Transport Union distributed
a bulletin warning that the state rail system was under threat from privatisation.
Under the “Hilmer principle of competition”, tendering for rail work would
introduce significant disadvantages for “rail workers currently responsible
for rail maintenance, train services and workshop maintenance areas”.

 

The union's previous catchcry was that rail workers and their unions
could “meet the challenge of improved productivity” and thus would be assured
of retaining their jobs.

Two years ago, the Rail Services Authority (RSA — in charge of rail
maintenance) and the unions duped staff into negotiating away many of their
hard-earned conditions. They were told that this was needed to secure their
jobs.

Before the ink was dry on the agreements, maintenance on the East Hill
line was handed to US multinational Fluor Daniel, despite the fact that
it had no rail work force and little experience in Australian railway maintenance.

Next to go was the maintenance contract on the Richmond line, to an
alliance between RSA and multinational Thiess — the dominant partner.

Early in 1997, the maintenance contract was let for the Illawarra line
— covering work from Waterfall in the metropolitan area to Bomaderry on
the South Coast. Again, Fluor Daniel was preferred tenderer.

Rank and file members of the Electrical Trades Union, Australian Manufacturing
Workers Union, AWU and the public transport unions began to raise a hullabaloo
when they learned that although they had increased “efficiencies” by trading
away conditions for paltry pay increases, they were likely to lose their
jobs to private companies.

In fact, the RSA workers were awarded only crumbs in the contract stakes,
the bulk of work going to private contractors.

The unions, in an effort to placate the maintenance workers, who now
knew that their redundancy cheques were in the mail, held a rally in Sydney
on August 5, 1997, culminating in a march to state parliament.

However, the efforts of the unions involved were (by design) poorly
coordinated and badly organised; only a few hundred workers turned out.
This allowed the unions to claim that the campaign was a failure due to
lack of support from members.

The unions argued with the Carr government that a four-year moratorium
should be placed on competitive tendering to allow them to bring the present
rail work force up to the efficiency level of private industry. The unions'
demand at the rally had been that the government withdraw from competitive
tendering and introduce benchmarking — which would only have led to workers
giving away more of their hard-won conditions.

This plea was ignored. The government pressed on with its “competition
policy”. The PTU consequently announced that negotiations had been “exhausted”
and advised that rail workers organise job meetings, calling for “membership
militancy”.

At stake were jobs in the rail workshops (those that were still intact).
Carriage cleaning was to be privatised. “Body hire” companies using workers
from home offices connected by computer would do the clerical and administrative
work such as payroll. Train crewing was to be farmed out to contractors.
Private security firms were to take over revenue collection.

Many station masters and assistant station masters' jobs have been abolished.
In their place, managers have been appointed to oversee the contractors
who will do the cleaning and other work now normally performed by rail
workers.

Ticket sales will be passed on to newsagents. Attempts will be made
to downgrade guards, paving the way for their eventual removal. Private
security guards already “ride shotgun” on many suburban and interurban
rail services. Freightcorp is on the verge of being fully privatised and
has already suffered enormous job losses.

Despite these threats and the strong rhetoric of unions, no mass meetings
of members have been organised.

Broken promises

Before the last state election, Labor promised rail workers that no jobs
would be lost and that no rail worker would be worse off under a Carr government.
How hollow those words now sound.

Illawarra maintenance workers' jobs were privatised. Fluor Daniel, despite
not having a work force of its own, re-hired only 55 of the RSA workers.

The remaining workers faced redundancy or redeployment and all the uncertainties
that would bring. The government did its best to hose down anger, promising
that “a meeting will be held with the work force” and that there would
be “full consultation with the unions”.

Shortly after the awarding of the Illawarra maintenance contract, rumours
abounded on the imminent privatisation of North Coast line maintenance
to construction group Transfield. In order to head off the looming crisis
within the transport unions, meetings were held with the Labour Council
and the Carr government.

The government was warned that it was committing electoral suicide and
that industrial action would result if it proceeded with further privatisation.

Rank and file union support was waning in the face of these privatisations,
which if they continued could have put the future of unions like the PTU
in jeopardy. The word disaffiliation was bandied about in one heated exchange
during these meetings, although how seriously one can only speculate.

Transport minister Brian Langton consequently appeared on television
to announce a temporary halt to rail maintenance tendering. With an election
due early next year, the risks would have been great, especially with sections
of the union movement growing restless after attempts to force through
privatisation of the electricity industry.

Deals seem to have been stuck with most of the public sector unions,
including the PTU, reluctantly supporting privatisation of power in exchange
for a slower pace of privatisation in their own spheres of influence. The
question that must be asked is whether workers and consumers will be better
off in this newly privatised non-union environment.

Consequences

International corporations have been making inroads into large infrastructure
projects for many years. They may be no better or worse than local multinationals,
especially if we go by the record of companies like BHP.

But I believe there are dangers in the way that companies with connections
to the US “military-industrial complex” and with ties to the US government
operate with complete disregard of foreign opinions, environmental laws
and wishes of the people.

Already we have seen problems with health and safety on the New Southern
Railway (East Hill line).

Privatisation, with the resultant deregulation of awards and weakening
of health and safety legislation and practice, will place workers in a
far weaker position.

Take the example of new policy adopted by the government within State
Rail this year. To reduce costs for the new private contractors, it has
embraced what it calls “affordable safety policy”.

Where rail maintenance levels are to be determined, it has come up with
a new phrase, “fit for service”. Specifications have been drawn up that
reduce the level of infrastructure maintenance on some sections of track.
Safeworking regulations have already been watered down.

Most of the current tradespeople will be made redundant. Work will be
performed be contractors unfamiliar with rail safety standards. There are
plans to have many suburban stations unattended, thereby reducing passenger
safety.

One wonders what figures the planners have come up with as being acceptable
levels of death and injury.

The Labour Council has presented a position paper to the premier asking
that special consideration be given to tenders “to exhibit a sense of social
responsibility by having regard to community interest”. This is a rather
naive demand knowing the background of corporations such as Fluor Daniel
and Thiess.

In Britain last year, rail privatisation was raised as a contributing
factor when a high-speed train crash left six dead and 160 hurt. The rail
infrastructure was owned by listed company Railtrack, said to have had
trouble with the huge number of companies bidding for rail contracts because
many were not up to scratch.

Passengers had continually complained, and still do, about the state
of the track. There was heavy pressure for the company to perform for its
shareholders, hence a large section of the work force was cut. Great Western
Trains had negotiated a productivity deal that delivered just one driver
for the high-speed train rather than the mandatory two.

The possibility is that here in NSW we may go through another Granville-type
crash before we are shaken from our complacency. Last week the previous
SRA chief executive, John Brew, made statements in the press and on television
about the unsafe state of rail infrastructure on the western line. In May
98, two train drivers died near Robertson in the Southern Highlands due
to deteriorated track.

It is not too late — or too early — to remember why the state originally
administered railways.

With companies such as Fluor Daniel maintaining much of the infrastructure
that we now take for granted, it will not be enough simply to take them
at their word when they say that everything is “under control”.

We must fight hard to retain public ownership now. Where that may be
impossible in the short term, we must force whoever is responsible to be
accountable, not to their shareholders, but to future generations.