Re: Working Coditions all Enginemen. was Guards to Drive During Olympics?

["Exnarc" <gwrly@netspace.net.au>]

Hi Jack,

Thanks for your reply, I will happily debate any issue if its looked at with
an open mind (as you appear to be doing).


Jack <bd107@tsn.cc> wrote in message
8ePU3.326$Bf5.9040@nsw.nnrp.telstra.net">news:8ePU3.326$Bf5.9040@nsw.nnrp.telstra.net...
> Hi Exnarc....
>
> Exnarc wrote in message <7vqfn3$noa$1@otis.netspace.net.au>...

>
> I dont know about Victoria, but in NSW the men were paid redundancy plus,
> get this, an incentive bonus to leave the then Freight Rail.. I think it
was
> either 8 or 15 weeks pay, I cant remember now..

Yes I know they where, something that Victorian Enginemen didn't get (with 2
exceptions, both of who took on Driver Specialist jobs).

>
> >

> Some blokes now are not getting the chance to leave the organisation, they
> are just being finished up.... When a person is one day Your Union rep and
> the next day part of management, how could you put a lot of store in what
> the person had to say...  Being disappointed is an understatement I
reckon,
> I think the blokes were conned by the likes of Hussey & Co, and also
conned on a local level, by the Drivers in Charge,

Hear, hear on that one!!!

>during the hiring process... I
> think if the drivers had an idea of how it has now turned out, NR wouldnt
> have got a taker, well not many any way.... I think the workers were
> deceived..

Me for one!!!


> Sure. Reith's legislation makes it a lot easier for the bosses to screw
the
> workforce, but for it to work U need mongrel companies and mangers to
> implement it....

And NRC are one of the mongrels you are talking about!!!


> I dont know what the job interview involved, but the hiring policies were
> very questionable... NRC hired some people who were not fully qualified at
> the time of the job interviews and left behind a lot of good people... But
> the people who were left behind should now consider themselves the lucky
> ones...

On this point I have a far knowledge, the interviews on the whole weren't
questionable as such, the process was questionable, I (as the Victorian
Divisional Vice President of the AFULE at the time) was involved in the
interviews for DIC's and Driver Trainers in Victoria, "Targeted Selection"
was the system used, at the time I had some doubt as to its suitability for
Enginemen's Interviews but that was the system chosen by NRC, To give a
basic run down on how it worked, a 3 person interview panel (1 NRC-1
Recruitment Agency & 1 Union Rep) would ask a series of questions of the
Interviewee, broken down into such Compidencies as Inititive, Decisiveness
etc. etc. The object was to get the Interviewee to relate actual experiences
and how they handled them, the panel had to score a "STAR" Situation/Task,
an Action, and a Result of that action. A lot of guys who where really great
Enginemen just couldn't handle this process, the scoring was on a rate of 0
to 5, 3 was a perfect score, if you gave a Sitituation/Task, told your
Action in handling that situation and came up with a Result you would get a
Star (3 points), a lot of guys just couldn't do this. If you got more than a
4 (4.5 or 5) you where considered to qualified for the position. Out of all
this, nothing showed if you could drive a train or not, that was the flaw in
the system.

> With the flood of applications for a couple of Countrylink jobs in Junee
> from NRC drivers, it is obvious to all who look, that this is one unhappy
> workforce..

It sure is, thats only the tip of the iceberg, over 20 left 9 months ago to
go to Hillside Trains, and now about 5 have left in Melbourne to go to
Freight Victoria.


> I couldnt agree with you more.. When NRC started I think NRC  drivers
wages were a fair way ahead of most others... now it has been whittled back,
plus the NRC blokes have lost a heap conditions, and their management is
after
> more..

If the NRC crews in Victoria were still being paid under the old V/Line
mileage and tonnage system they would be on $100,000 a year, the NRC EA was
worked out on rosters that NRC had no intension of accepting as the norm,
the whole exercise was a con job, and as already has been pointed out
everyone is suffering the consequences, but at least its not as bad as that
being used by ASR, they are real Arseholes.

Bob.