Sydney Trains v Communications, Electrical, Electronic, Energy, Information, Postal, Plumbing and Allied Services Union of Australia
[2020] FWCFB 1315
•12 MARCH 2020
| [2020] FWCFB 1315 |
| FAIR WORK COMMISSION |
DECISION |
Fair Work Act 2009
s.604 - Appeal of decisions
Sydney Trains
v
Communications, Electrical, Electronic, Energy, Information, Postal, Plumbing and Allied Services Union of Australia
(C2019/7513)
VICE PRESIDENT HATCHER | SYDNEY, 12 MARCH 2020 |
Appeal against decision [[2019] FWC 7871] of Commissioner McKenna at Sydney on 22 November 2019 in matter number C2019/6213.
Introduction and background
[1] Sydney Trains has lodged an appeal under s 604 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (FW Act), for which permission to appeal is required, against a decision issued by Commissioner McKenna on 22 November 2019 1 (decision). The decision was made pursuant to s 739 of the FW Act and clause 8 of the dispute resolution procedure in the Sydney Trains Enterprise Agreement 2018 (Agreement). The dispute the subject of the decision concerned, broadly speaking, whether it was safe for Sydney Trains to proceed with a proposed field trial of new switching arrangements. Electrical System Operators (ESOs) who would be involved in the conduct of the trial and their union, the Communications, Electrical, Electronic, Energy, Information, Postal, Plumbing and Allied Services Union of Australia (CEPU), took the position that the proposed new arrangements posed a safety risk. Sydney Trains contends in its appeal that the decision was in error because it involved the wrong answer being given to a question of construction and because it failed to resolve the dispute as required by clause 8 of the Agreement.
[2] The background to this matter may be described as follows. Sydney Trains is the operator of the Sydney metropolitan train network. In September 2019, Sydney Trains directed its ESOs to undertake a field trial of new switching arrangements, referred to as “sequential switching”, to isolate sections of the electrified overhead wiring system of the network to permit maintenance or capital works to be undertaken or to respond to an emergency incident. Isolation firstly requires the remote de-energisation of the section of wiring required to be isolated, and then requires the switches at both ends of the section of wiring to be moved manually from the “closed” position to “open” and then to “rail connect”.
[3] Under the current switching arrangements, the switch at the first end (End 1) of the section must be “proved dead”, meaning that a tool is used to check that no electricity is flowing through the switch. The switch at End 1 is then moved from closed to open. Next, the switch at the other end of the section (End 2) is proved dead, and the switch is moved from open to closed to rail connect in one consecutive motion. Finally, the switch at End 1 is moved from open to rail connect, and the section is isolated. Undertaking this task may involve one ESO moving from End 1 to End 2 and then back to End 1, or it may involve an ESO at each end. De-isolation requires the described procedure to be undertaken in reverse. Under the proposed new switching arrangements, after de-energisation, the switch at End 1 is proved dead and then moved from open to closed to rail connect in one consecutive motion. The same procedure is then undertaken at End 2, and the relevant section of wiring is then isolated.
[4] Sydney Trains’ proposed trials were to take place under an Electrical Network Safety Rules Waiver, with the initial trial scheduled over three nights from 24 September 2019. Sydney Trains wished to trial these new switching arrangements on the basis that they would maintain or improve the safety of the switching process and create improvements in efficiency prior to deciding whether the new switching arrangements should be introduced across the Sydney Trains network. The CEPU disputed the implementation of the new switching arrangements on the basis, among other things, that it was not a reasonable direction, was not consistent with clause 35.2 of the Agreement and was in contravention of Rule 6 of the Sydney Trains Electricity Network Safety Rules (Safety Rules) which govern the conduct of the switching arrangements.
[5] Clause 35.2 of the Agreement provides that “The Employer must ensure the health, safety and welfare at work of all its Employees”. Rule 6 of the Safety Rules provides:
“6 Safety first
At all times and in all workplaces, workers have a duty to take reasonable care of their own health and safety while at work and also to take reasonable care so that their conduct does not adversely affect the health and safety of other persons at the workplace.
As most accidents result from lack of care by the worker injured or by some other person, workers are cautioned not to allow familiarity with the work to give rise to carelessness.
Workers must keep their mind focussed on the work, particularly when:
• operating electrical equipment;
• working on, near or in the vicinity of live equipment;
• working near cables, cable pits or cable chambers; or
• when working aloft.
If for any reason:
• an Authorised Person;
• any person in the work party; or
• a Manager directly associate with the work who has currency of knowledge about the project, people, processes, tasks, hazards and work site conditions,
considers that the work cannot be done or completed in a safe manner, then the work shall not be commenced or the work shall stop as the case may be. Arrangements shall then be made for the work to be carried out in a safe manner.”
[6] On 24 September 2019, the CEPU gave formal notice of a dispute in accordance with clause 8 of the Agreement to Sydney Trains and invoked the Agreement’s status quo provision. Clause 8 of the Agreement relevantly provides:
8. DISPUTE SETTLEMENT PROCEDURE (DSP)
8.1 The purpose of this procedure is to ensure that disputes are resolved as quickly and as close to the source of the issue as possible. This procedure requires that there is a resolution to disputes and that while the procedure is being followed, work continues normally.
8.2. This procedure shall apply to any dispute that arises about the following:
(a) matters pertaining to the relationship between the Employer and Employees (including workload changes);
...
. . .
8.4 Any dispute between the Employer and the Employee(s) or the Employee’s Representative shall be resolved according to the following steps:
STEP 1: Where a dispute arises it shall be raised in the first instance by the Employee(s) or their Union delegate directly with the local supervisor/manager. The local supervisor/manager shall provide a written response to the Employee(s) or their Union delegate concerning the dispute within 48 hours advising them of the action being taken. The status quo before the emergence of the dispute shall continue whilst the dispute settlement procedure is being followed. For this purpose "status quo" means the work procedures and practices in place immediately prior to the change that gave rise to the dispute.
STEP 2: If the dispute remains unresolved, or if the dispute involves matters other than local issues, the Director Workplace Relations, Policy and Transition Services or their nominee, a divisional management representative and the Employee(s) and/or the Employee(s) Representative, Union delegate or official shall confer and take appropriate action to arrive at a settlement of the matters in dispute within 72 hours of the completion of Step 1 or the Director Workplace Relations, Policy and Transition Services being notified of a dispute involving matters other than local issues.
STEP 3: If the dispute remains unresolved, each party to the dispute shall advise in writing of their respective positions and negotiations about the dispute will be held between the Employee Representative(s) or Union official, the Chief Executive of Sydney Trains or their nominee who will meet and conclude their discussions within 48 hours. The matter may be referred to Unions NSW for resolution of the dispute by any of the parties involved provided Unions NSW is chosen by the Employees as their representative.
STEP 4: If the dispute remains unresolved any party may refer the matter to the Fair Work Commission for conciliation. If conciliation does not resolve the dispute the matter shall be arbitrated by the Fair Work Commission provided that arbitration is limited to disputes that involve matters listed in sub-clause 8.2 of this procedure.
. . .
8.9. Safety Issues
Matters which are based on a reasonable concern by an Employee about an imminent risk to an Employee's health or safety shall be excluded from the DSP. Where a matter is raised involving such an issue, the Employee shall agree to comply with a direction by the Employer to perform other available work which is safe and reasonable and within their skills and competence with no reduction in the rostered rate of pay of the Employee while the alternative work is being performed.
[7] On 10 October 2019, the CEPU lodged an application pursuant to s 739 of the FW Act and Step 4 of clause 8.4 of the Agreement to deal with the dispute. On the same day Sydney Trains lodged an application pursuant to s 418 of the FW Act alleging that the ESOs were engaging in non-protected industrial action by refusing to engage in the trial (which was at that stage scheduled to take place on 26 November 2019). However this application was later withdrawn, and Sydney Trains agreed not to take any further steps concerning the trial until the dispute was determined by the Commission.
[8] Conciliation conducted by another member of the Commission pursuant to Step 4 of clause 8.4 of the Agreement failed to resolve the dispute, and the matter was then listed for an urgent hearing before the Commissioner on the basis that the matter was time-sensitive having regard to Sydney Trains’ desire to proceed with the trial on 26 November 2019. Prior to the hearing, the CEPU prepared a “List of Issues” which it requested that the Commissioner determine. This document was subsequently amended, and in its final form identified the issues to be determined as follows (original numbering retained, strikeouts omitted):
“3. Will the implementation of the Proposal mean that Sydney Trains will be failing to:
(a) ensure the health, safety and welfare at work of all its employees, contrary to clause 35.2 of the Agreement?
(b) ensure so far as reasonably practicable the health and safety of all its employees contrary to ss.19(1) of the Work Health & Safety Act (NSW) 2011 (Act)?
(c) ensure so far as is reasonably practicable the safety of Sydney Trains railway operations contrary to ss.52(1) of the Rail Safety National Law (Law)?
(d) conform to the provisions of the Electrical Safety Rules (Rules) that are applicable to its railway operations?
4. If the answer to 3 or any part of 3 is yes, is Sydney Trains entitled to introduce the Proposal?
5. Is the risk of being exposed to live electrical current or flash over eliminated or minimised by completely isolating energised power lines to the same extent as when a 1500V Direct Current Circuit Breaker is used?
6. In particular, is the risk of using a 1500V Direct Current Circuit Breaker in order to work on switches greater than if energised power lines are completely isolated because in using a 1500V Direct Current Circuit breaker the possibility of accidental closure of the circuit breaker or of incorrect indications is always in prospect whereby those possibilities are not present when energised lines are completely isolated?
7. Is the new Sequential Switching Procedure under Waiver No. DSYD2019/13460[v2] as safe as the ‘Isolate Prior to Rail Connect Control’ for switched rail connections?
8. If the answer to 6 or 7 is no, then do the Rules permit Sydney Trains to implement the Proposal?
9. In particular:
(b) Does Rule 6 of the Rules – PR D 78101 General Requirements for Electrical Work entitle any authorised person or person in a working party who considers that work in accordance with the Proposal cannot be done safely, or completed in a safe manner, to not commence or stop the work as the case may be?”
[9] The “Proposal” referred to above is for the introduction of the new sequential switching arrangements. Sydney Trains’ position was that the questions for determination were whether the Agreement prevented Sydney Trains from requiring employees to undertake work in accordance with the sequential switching requirements as part of the trial and, if the answer to this question was “no”, whether such a requirement was reasonable having regard to considerations of safety.
[10] The hearing was conducted on 11, 15 and 18 November 2019. The CEPU called a number of witnesses, including an ESO and two Electrical Systems Supervisors (ESSs). Sydney Trains called three witnesses:
• Dale Curran, Associate Director, Network Operations within the Network Maintenance Division of the Engineering and Maintenance Directorate;
• Paul Swift, Technical Specialist on the Electrical Isolation Improvement Program which developed the Sequential Switching proposal; and
• Peter Griffin, a senior consultant with Arup Pty Ltd (and former employee of Sydney Trains), who was one of the two reviewers of a report authored by Dierk Hartmann of Axess Advisory entitled “EIIP [Electrical Isolation Improvement Project] Sequential Switching - Independent Safety Assessment” (Axess Report).
[11] Sydney Trains also relied on a report entitled “Inspection and test report on 1500 DC switching procedures and arching hazards” which it had commissioned from Professor David Sweeting of Sweeting Consulting Pty Ltd (Sweeting Report).
[12] Final written submissions were filed on 21 November 2019 and, as earlier stated, the decision was delivered on 22 November 2019.
The decision
[13] In the decision the Commissioner, after setting out the background to the dispute and reviewing the evidence, turned to consider the issues in dispute. At the outset of her consideration, the Commissioner said:
“[49] Notwithstanding all that was advanced in the proceeding by each of the parties, matters fall, and indeed properly must fall, in my view, on the question posed in 9(b) of the List of Issues.”
[14] In addressing question 9(b), the Commissioner said (emphasis in original):
“[51] Rule 6 reads as it does in specifying that if, for any reason, a relevant employee considers that the work cannot be done or completed in a safe manner, then the work shall not be commenced or the work shall stop as the case may be. Sydney Trains submitted that these words should, in effect, be conditioned to mean other than as written. That is, the submissions for Sydney Trains were to the effect that if Sydney Trains considered, or the Commission considered (or perhaps a consultant considered), that the work could be undertaken in a safe manner then the individual employee-focussed obligation would not operate: but that is not what Rule 6 provides.
[52] To the extent Sydney Trains submitted that a type of “objectively reasonable” criterion must be read into that part of Rule 6 which reads “If for any reason”, I say the following. No part of Sydney Trains’ case contended that the employees’ concerns are not bona fide. As the Axess report noted, “the ESOs, who give the switching instructions to the Field Operators and thereby accept a high degree of responsibility for the well-being of Field Operators, believe the proposed electrical isolation process is less safe than the present process.” It is apposite to note, in such respects, that there is nothing in the background, as it were, to this safety dispute or the concerns held by the employees. Put another way - and this was a matter of common ground in the proceedings - there is no “hidden agenda” here for the employees or the Union. There are, for example, no enterprise agreement negotiations on foot involving pay and conditions, no separate background disputation between the employees or the Union and Sydney Trains about workplace matters, no contentions that the proposed arrangements would involve additional work for the employees or additional uncompensated work, and no redundancies or the like envisaged as a result of the introduction of Sydney Trains’ proposed changes. The ESO’s concerns are for the safety of the Field Officers.
[53] Moreover, there is nothing to indicate that the employees’ concerns are unreasonably-held or otherwise objectively unreasonable...”
[15] Immediately after the last statement quoted above, the Commissioner then made two observations. The first was that the Axess report noted that new risks would be introduced with the implementation of the sequential switching arrangements. 2 The second (which was referred to as a finding) was that the Commissioner did not accept as “reliably-based” the likelihood of an incident under the new system with the potential of causing the worst credible consequences being once in 14,000 to 15,000 years.3 The Commissioner gave her reasons for this finding and in doing so referred to evidence of some of the CEPU’s witnesses and the Sweeting Report.4 The Commissioner then said:
“[56] The is no proper basis to conclude that the views of, for instance, this Commission, the views of Sydney Trains’ management or the views of Sydney Trains’ consultant/s could supplant or displace the obligations in Rule 6 that repose individually in ESOs concerning undertaking their work in a way identified in the proposals. In this regard, it may be noted that evidence of Mr Curran fairly acknowledged that the operation of Rule 6 ultimately operated at a level of individuals’ own responsibilities.
[57] As noted earlier, question 9(b) asks: “Does Rule 6 of the Rules – PR D 78101 General Requirements for Electrical Work entitle any authorised person or person in a working party who considers that work in accordance with the Proposal cannot be done safely, or completed in a safe manner, to not commence or stop the work as the case may be?”. I answer this question “Yes”, and also add this: Not only does Rule 6 entitle an authorised person not to commence or to stop the work, Rule 6 requires that result. This is because Rule 6 specifies, in mandatory language, that the work shall not be commenced or the work shall stop as the case may be. No discretion - none at all - is bestowed by Rule 6 upon an employee to commence or continue the work if the employee has formed the requisite opinion that the work cannot be done or completed in a safe manner. (It otherwise would be unthinkable to, say, require any employee to undertake tasks if the employee has, as the employees in this case do, conscientiously-based concerns that the performance of work tasks cannot be done safely, or completed in a safe manner.) Moreover, Rule 6 further provides that, in such circumstances, arrangements shall then be made for the work to be carried out in a safe manner.
[58] In view of my conclusions about question 9(b), it is unnecessary to answer the other questions posed in the List of Issues, namely questions 3(a), 3(d), 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. Even if it were open to me to make an evaluative assessment, rather than, say, either affirmatively or negatively answer questions 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, I would not do so. Shortly stated, the evidence and submissions were of such a highly technical and complicated nature, and so contested on matters of technical, micro-detail, that I would not presume to pass upon such matters even though I have been invited to do so or it is agreed I may do so; the matters were indeterminable on what was before me. In any event, even if the matters had been determinable on what was before me, I would not make any decision which may result in it being perceived that the Commission had given its imprimatur to propositions that, as to the questions posed, something was, for example, “safe”, “not safe”, “as safe”, “compliant”, “not compliant”, “involves a material risk”, “does not involve a material risk” or the like. Similar considerations arise in relation to questions 3(a) and 3(d).”
Appeal grounds and submissions
[16] Sydney Trains’ appeal grounds and submissions advance the following contentions:
• the Commissioner’s answer to Question 9(b) of the List of Issues was incorrect;
• the Commissioner erred in construing Rule 6 so as to entitle an employee not to commence work or stop work if that person had a bona fide or conscience-based view that the work cannot be done or completed in a safe manner;
• even if the Commissioner’s answer to Question 9(b) was correct, the parties had a broader interest in resolving the other questions in the List of Issues in the event that the employees changed their mind or other employees did not hold a similar conscientious objection to performing sequential switching;
• the Commissioner erred in failing to exercise the powers conferred on her, namely to resolve all issues in dispute between the parties referred to the Commission for arbitration in accordance with clause 8.4 of the Agreement and s 739(4) of the FW Act;
• the Commissioner erred in determining that the matters “properly must fall… on the question posed in 9(b) of the List of Issues” and it was therefore “unnecessary to answer the other questions posed in the List of Issues, namely questions 3(a), 3(d), 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8”, in particular regarding the objective safety of the proposal;
• the Commissioner erred by indicating that in any event she would have refused to resolve the other questions due to the technical nature of the issues involved;
• if the Commissioner considered that she was not suitably qualified or experienced to resolve the dispute referred to her because of the technical nature of the subject-matter, she should have referred the matter to Registry to be allocated to another member of the Commission for determination;
• the Commissioner erred in concluding that the parts of the Axess Report which propositioned that the likelihood of an incident with the potential of causing the worst credible consequence is once in 14,000 to 15,000 years were not reliably based; and
• accordingly, permission to appeal should be granted and the appeal upheld.
[17] Sydney Trains seeks that the decision be set aside and the matter be subject to a rehearing by the Full Bench, delegated to another member of the Commission for rehearing, or remitted to the Commissioner (though Sydney Trains submitted that this would not be without difficulty given the approach taken by the Commissioner in the decision).
[18] The CEPU submitted that:
• permission to appeal should be refused because the decision raised no issue of importance or general application, the appeal was weak on the merits, and the decision did not prevent Sydney Trains from conducting switching processes in accordance with current procedures;
• the Commissioner’s construction of Rule 6 of the Safety Rules, whereby it is concerned with the mental process of the relevant employee, was correct;
• Rule 6 cannot be assigned a meaning which does not accord with the plain meaning of its text;
• the Commissioner’s finding that there was nothing to indicate that the employees’ concerns were unreasonably held or not objectively reasonable gives effect to Sydney Trains’ “safety first” policy and does not result in a capricious or unreasonable outcome;
• the existing switching method, which all parties accept is safe, is the obvious method of carrying out the work in a safe manner which addresses the concerns of employees;
• the dispute was whether the sequential switching procedure could or should be implemented;
• in circumstances where the Commission has determined that there was one particular issue which prevented sequential switching from being introduced, the Commission is not compelled to resolve a dispute in the precise manner suggested by the parties or to answer each of the precise questions posed by the parties but rather the Commission must exercise the powers conferred upon it by the parties in the agreement itself; and
• if the Commissioner was correct in relation to Rule 6, she was not required to answer each question.
Consideration
[19] Our view concerning this appeal may shortly be stated: we consider that the Commissioner’s answer to question 9(b) was correct, but the Commissioner was in error in concluding that this answer resolved the dispute in accordance with Step 4 of clause 8.4 of the Agreement.
[20] In relation to the proper construction of question 9(b), the penultimate sentence of Rule 6 of the Safety Rules turns on whether the relevant employee “considers” that the work cannot be done or completed in a safe manner. This necessarily focuses attention on the relevant employee’s subjective belief, state of mind or thought process concerning the safety or otherwise of the work in question, and is not on the ordinary meaning of the language used concerned with whether the work is, objectively considered, unsafe. We accept Sydney Trains’ submission that a requirement of reasonableness must be implied into the provision since the parties cannot have intended that work might stop or not commence on the basis of a subjective consideration of safety which is irrational, fanciful, illogical or not held for a bona fide purpose. However that is of course a long way from saying that the employee’s view of the matter must be objectively correct: a person may reasonably hold a belief about something but ultimately be proven to be wrong in objective terms - because, for example, the employee is not in possession of all the relevant information or lacks the technical knowledge to come to a correct appreciation of the situation. We do not read the Commissioner’s decision as taking any different approach to that advanced by Sydney Trains in the appeal, since she assessed the views of the employees who resisted participating in the trial of the sequential switching procedure as being bona fide, not unreasonably held and not objectively unreasonable. Therefore acceptance of Sydney Trains’ proposed construction of the penultimate sentence of Rule 6 of the Safety Rules does not take the matter any further.
[21] However it is clear, we consider, that the answer given to question 9(b) did not resolve the dispute not least because the question only addresses part of Rule 6 and ignores the final sentence. Rule 6 does not proceed on the basis that if an employee reasonably considers that undertaking a given work task is unsafe, the work ceases or does not commence and that is the end of the matter. There is a further step required in the last sentence of the rule: arrangements must then be made for the work to be carried out in a safe manner. This last requirement does not proceed on the basis of what any individual considers to be the case; what constitutes the carrying out of the work “in a safe manner” is expressed in entirely objective terms. It is necessarily implicit in this last step that an inquiry is required in order to determine the extent to which the employee’s reasonably-held concern has objective validity and what is necessary, if anything, to permit the work to proceed in an objectively safe manner. Therefore answering question 9(b) did not determine the dispute, because the next question which necessarily arose in the application of the last sentence of Rule 6 to this dispute was whether the position held by the affected employees was, objectively speaking, right or wrong. That question, which is determinable by reference to Sydney Trains’ obligation under clause 35.2 of the Agreement, was simply not addressed in the decision and remains unresolved.
[22] Under s 739(5) of the FW Act, the Commission is prohibited from making a decision in the exercise of dispute resolution powers conferred by (relevantly) an enterprise agreement that is inconsistent with (relevantly) that applicable enterprise agreement. In this case, clause 8.1 of the Agreement provides that “This procedure requires that there is a resolution to disputes”with the consequence that the purpose and result of the exercise of arbitration powers in Step 4 of clause 8.4 (which is the last step of the procedure) must be a final resolution of the dispute. The Commissioner’s decision was not consistent with that requirement and accordingly infringed the s 739(5) prohibition.
[23] We note the Commissioner’s comment that she considered that the matters before her were “indeterminable”. We agree that a number of the questions raised by the CEPU were excessively technical and not appropriately directed to the proper resolution of the dispute (such as questions 5, 6 and 7). We also consider that it may not have been useful for the Commissioner to provide her opinion concerning the matters in questions 3(b) and (c), since any arbitration conducted pursuant to clause 8 of the Agreement cannot bind the regulators under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW) or the Rail Safety National Law nor affect the rights and obligations of Sydney Trains and its employees under those Acts. The essential question in the dispute was whether Sydney Trains could lawfully and reasonably direct ESOs and, to the extent necessary, ESSs to participate in the trial having regard to its obligation under clause 35.2 of the Agreement. That question was embodied in the CEPU’s questions 3(a) and 4 and in Sydney Trains’ identification of the issue to be resolved (as recorded in paragraph [48] of the decision). We consider that the obligation to resolve the dispute under clause 8 of the Agreement required that question to be answered.
[24] We accept that answering the question involves some difficulty. It requires in the first instance that any questions concerning the proper construction of clause 35.2 (such as whether it contains the implicit qualification that health and safety must be ensured only so far as is reasonably practicable) be resolved. More significantly, it requires a detailed evaluation of the expert and lay evidence to be undertaken so that the correct conclusion may be identified. We do not consider that the Commissioner was assisted in this case in making the required decision by the parties’ insistence that the dispute had to be resolved as a matter of urgency. The difficulty of the question which the parties’ nominated arbitrator had to resolve required a considered and detailed process of deliberation, not a quick decision produced pursuant to an artificial deadline.
[25] For the reasons given, we consider that it is appropriate to grant permission to appeal, and we uphold the appeal. There was some debate before us as to the course we should take if we should reach that outcome. We consider that the appropriate course is to remit the matter to the Commissioner to answer the question we have identified, since she has the advantage of already having heard the evidence. Although the parties had different preferences as to how the matter should proceed if the appeal was upheld, no party ultimately submitted that it was not appropriate for the Commissioner to finalise the matter.
Orders
[26] We order as follows:
(1) Permission to appeal is granted.
(2) The appeal is upheld.
(3) The matter (C2019/6213) is remitted to Commissioner McKenna for determination of the following question:
Can Sydney Trains lawfully and reasonably direct relevant Electrical Systems Supervisors and Electrical System Operators to perform work in connection with the trial of the proposed sequential switching procedure having regard to its obligation under clause 35.2 of the Sydney Trains Enterprise Agreement 2018?
VICE PRESIDENT
Appearances:
M Seck of counsel with L Scandrett on behalf of Sydney Trains.
M Gibian SC of counsel with A Jacka on behalf of the Communications, Electrical, Electronic, Energy, Information, Postal, Plumbing and Allied Services Union of Australia.
Hearing details:
2020.
Sydney:
17 February.
Printed by authority of the Commonwealth Government Printer
<PR717410>
1 [2019] FWC 7871
2 Ibid at [53]
3 Ibid at [54]
4 Ibid at [54]-[55]
3
1
0