Joe Dennis
Organiser
With the Metro Enterprise Agreement in full swing and the V/Line agreement about to begin, our office and Delegates are in for a busy time ahead. Delegates and Organisers continue to visit work places to update as many members as we can. As you can appreciate this is a huge task as most of our members at both Metro and V/line members work rotating rosters, therefore making it impossible for us to catch everyone.
We will continue to update as many staff members as we can along the way and will arrange meetings at the appropriate times to discuss the agreement as we progress through bargaining.
The Minister for Public Transport Melissa Horne, Public Transport Victoria (PTVs) Alan Fedda, Branch Secretary Luba Grigorovitch, Probe Delegates and I recently met with the CEO of Probe for a walk around of the PTV Call Centre in Latrobe Street. This visit strengthened our relationship with our PTV Call Centre members who were excited to see the Minister in their workplace and shed some light on the many issues at the Call Centre.
Probe’s Enterprise Agreement is also about to expire on 25 April 2019. In conjunction with the National Union of Workers (NUW) and Australian Services Union (ASU), there has been several attempts to get Probe to begin negotiation, but to date they have not cooperated. We will continue to communicate with Probe management in the hope of coming together to begin negotiations for our members.
There was also a recent announcement made regarding a restructure of PTV, Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR) and VicRoads all joining together under one Government department of Transport. The Roads Traffic Management Centre provides priority to trams and buses during disruptions and the consolidation of VicRoads and PTV aims to minimise the impacts on people as well as assist in customer messaging and engagement of future projects. This restructure will help passengers move from point A to B faster by liaising between departments and organising disruptions.
