Staff cuts and closures for Sydney stations

Up to 60 stations on Sydney's Cityrail network are being 
closed or short-staffed due to RailCorp cost cutting, according 
to rail workers, who have flagged industrial action unless the 
Carr Government addresses the issue.

Short staffing came to a head on June 9 when a passenger on the 
Illawarra line suffered a heart attack, forcing the train to stop 
at Austinmer. An untrained RailCorp CSA (Customer Service 
Assistant) was the only staff member on duty to deal with 
hundreds of passengers as well as the heart attack victim.

The CSA was filling in as RailCorp had refused overtime so a 
qualified station manager could be on duty at Austinmer.

"This is not the CSA's fault", said Phil Kessey from the Rail 
Tram and Bus Union (RTBU).

Railcorp has placed a restriction on overtime and, according to 
the RTBU, is not recruiting at a correct level, with more people 
leaving the rail service than coming in.

"The Minister and the Premier have been running around for four 
years saying that the system relied on overtime, now they're 
saying it's a problem", said Mr Kessey.

The RTBU slammed RailCorp's excuse that fatigue is behind the 
decision not to award overtime.

The RTBU claims that it is all about cost-cutting and running 
down services.

"We want people to understand that they are being made accustomed 
to having less staff on stations", warned Mr Kessey.

Rail workers have given the Carr Government two weeks to address 
the issue or face stopwork meetings that will discuss 24-hour 
stoppages.

Train station staff are also writing to parents expressing 
concern over the safety of school children on unstaffed stations, 
as well as circulating petitions calling on the Carr Government 
to act over the issue.

Meanwhile, train drivers who have undergone testing that has been 
labelled as "questionable" by experts, are sitting idle despite 
government and RailCorp claims of a driver "shortage".

"The regime of psychometric testing is not an accepted method of 
testing", said Phil Kessey. "We have drivers that are qualified 
and re-certified that are sitting on the side because of this 
testing that has been questioned by psychometric experts".