NSW: Railway workers play pool as the system crumbles, Herald

AAP General News (Australia)
08-12-2000
NSW: Railway workers play pool as the system crumbles, Herald

SYDNEY, Aug 12 AAP - About 120 maintenance workers are paid $600 a week to turn up
for work each day and play snooker, table tennis and cars as the state government battle
growing infrastructure problems.

The Sun-Herald reports that these men, employed by Rail Services Australia (RSA), are
desperate to work but management decisions mean they are forced to spent eight hours a
day in a "redeployment centre" within the Chullora Rail Workshops.

Workers refer to the centre, a disused hall, as a "vegie patch", according to the Herald.

Some have been attending the centre for 13 months, picking up $600 a week before tax.

Some of the 120 tradesmen were offered jobs in a new joint-venture maintenance facility
at Chullora between the RSA and French-based multinational Alstrom.

Others were offered redundancy packages.

Workers offered jobs with the joint venture refused them because of lower superannuation
entitlements caused by moving from the public sector super scheme and they could lose
$50,000 in entitlements.

Since there is no policy of forced redundancies or redeployment in the railways, workers
have decided to stay put until the RSA offers them new jobs.

The Herald report says the RSA has offered the men other work, which they say is unacceptable.

Jobs on offer include labouring on trackwork, weeding gardens, picking up rubbish and
cleaning carriages.

Australian Metal Workers Union organiser Mark Hoban said the RSA has simply put the
men in a "holding pen" hoping they would take redundancy and disappear.

Mr Hoban said he was surprised Transport Minister Carl Scully didn't make use of their services.

Rail supremo Ron Christie said the workers would be made two reasonable job offers
between now and the end of the year or they could take a redundancy package of a maximum
51 weeks pay, plus an eight-week bonus and take their super with them.

The Australian Rail Tram and Bus Industry Union state secretary Nick Lewocki said the
redundancy package was not enough for most men to meet financial commitments and the majority
would find it hard to find another job.

AAP alt/hu

KEYWORD: TRAINS

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