Region 7 Bargaining Update

As members are aware, we’ve working through the Busways offer and have now touched base with the company about a few of the clauses in their draft. This was an informal meeting to clarify some of the draft content rather than a proper bargaining meeting. They were receptive to our arguments and genuinely seem to want to work this out, which is good but the proof will be in the result. An example is the Absence Management Procedure clause being proposed. The union considers what was put forward to be too heavy handed and the company has agreed to some of our concerns. The result is that the union will be drafting a replacement clause for the company to consider.

Members need to remember, this isn’t going to be the STA Award, but something in between a normal private sector EA and what we had with STA. There are things they want to get rid of and there’s things we want to keep. At the moment it’s like going to buy a car and offering 10k for a 30k price tag. We’re negotiating and there’s not much point in explaining every single item and where it’s at because the outcome will be something different again.