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.