Report: Analyzing RTBU's Role in the NSW Train Workers' Dispute 2018.

This report critically analyzes the role of the Rail, Tram, and Bus Union (RTBU) in Australia, particularly its involvement in the 2018 NSW train workers' dispute. It evaluates the union's tactics, referencing relevant theories and research on union behavior, and discusses the implications of the union's role for the continuing relevance of unions in contemporary Australian society. The report also explores the effectiveness of RTBU in addressing issues like wage growth and the impact of technology on employment, and offers recommendations for improving the union's future activities, including strengthening communication, implementing auditing systems, and promoting collaborative models of governance. The analysis considers collective bargaining and co-determination based models, highlighting the importance of transparency and cooperation in negotiation systems. The document is available on Desklib, where students can find similar assignments and study resources.

nnin ead ole o T in A traliaRu g H : R f RB U us 1
Title
Assignment Name :
Student Name
Course Name and Number
Professor
Date

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Executive summary:
In this assignment, role of Rail, Tram, and Bus Union in Australia is discussed in a vivid
manner. Collaborative bargaining and co-determination based model are also provided here. It
will generate an interest about industrial relationships, union regulations and other norms of
Australia among all readers. Some recommendations are also included in this assignment to
provide some way for betterment of activities of RTBU. Lots of information are collected from
enormous primary and secondary sources of information. Further study is highly crucial to make
some bold steps against low wage culture for Australian labors.

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Table of contents
ntrod ctionI u :...............................................................................................................................................4
ole o ail tram nion T in A traliaR f R , bus, u (R BU) us .........................................................................................4
T e e ecti ene o Th ff v ss f RB U:..........................................................................................................................5
etterment o t e t re acti itie o TB f h fu u v s f RB U:...............................................................................................6
ele ant t eorie on t e role o nion and t eir e a iorR v h s h s f u h b h v :.......................................................................8
Collective bargaining theory:..................................................................................................................8
Co-determination based model:.............................................................................................................10
T e implication o t e nion roleh s f h u ’s :.........................................................................................................11
oncl ionC us :................................................................................................................................................12
e erenceR f s:................................................................................................................................................13

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Introduction:
n t i a i nment t e i ni icant role o A tralian ail Tram and nion T iI h s ss g , h s g f f us R , , Bus U (R BU) s
di c ed in t e li t o ollecti e ar ainin T eor and o determination a ed model o nions uss h gh f C v b g g h y C - b s f u s.
ome i ni icant role o T are di c ed ere in t e conte t o la or a e ro t related i e inS s g f s f R BU s uss h h x f b w g s g w h- ssu s
A tralia n t i a pect t e pro ect i al o i li ted ere T t e lar e t la or nion ore erus . I h s s , h NSW j s s h gh gh h . R BU, h g s b u f v ,
ormed in i no compri ed o mem er acro rail tram tran portation tem Tf 1993, s w s f 35000 b s ss , bus, s sys . R BU
i al o a iliated A T t e i e t a t orit or nternational Tran port or er ederation alons s ff by C U, h h gh s u h y f I s W k s F g
it t eir million or er in more t an co ntrie in t e orld n t i a i nment t eir rolew h h 5 w k s h 100 u s h w . I h s ss g , h s,
ne otiation po er and t eir implication in miti atin ome i ni icant la or related i e in A traliag w h s g g s s g f b - ssu s us
are di c ed in an in ormati e a All o t e e di c ion are pre ented in t e ollo in parts uss f v w y. f h s s uss s s h f w g .
Role of Rail, bus, tram union (RTBU) in Australia
In Australia, Rail, Bus, Tram union (RBTU) plays a crucial role in maintaining the
equilibrium between employers of Australia and their capital distribution system. In this aspect,
RBTU is a regulatory body in Australia in the field of Industrial regulation in Australia. Critical
roles of RBTU include providing support to the employees to raise voice against their every kind
of issues, negotiation problem, deprivation from their salaries and other issues. In Australia,
RBTU has acted as an Industrial regulatory pendulum with their activities of the multi-dynamic
facet. RBTU has also taken part in the managerial policy and Human resource management to
resolve employee management related issues. Employees always get the advocacy of RBTU in all
of their crucial period. Along with all of these, RBTU is the authority to ensure every kind of
employee obligations. According to Fair Work Ombudsman of Australia, RBTU has another
crucial role to detect all kinds of suspicious breaches in the field of workplace-related laws;
Discrimination based laws, and workplace safety law.
Rail, Bus, Tram Union of Australia is prudently efficient in the organizational negotiation
process, which is called Bargaining about industrial agreements. In this negotiation or bargaining
process, Union acts as the intermediate regulatory body to look after the advantages of employees
during the formation of the organizational agreement without making any kinds of breaches of
Industrials legal rules and regulations. In this entire scenario, Union acts as the bargaining
representative in good faith. RBTU has the role to inform both of the employees and employers

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about the matter on which both of the parties are willing to sign any kinds of Industrial document.
RBTU is also useful during formation of the Disclosure document, which contents a particular
type of benefit for the employees, name of the particular person of both employee and employer
that who will get the benefits and how much will be the amount. It is true that RBTU is the voice
of employees to convey all of their information to the employers for every benefit of employees.
It is reported from numerous web sources that, in recent times RBTU has played the vital role in
Industrial regulation, mainly in the conflict management activities among employees and
employers. They are also referred to as the Industrial Relations pendulum. RBTU is the Managing
Authority of the workplace relation based framework in Australia along with Industrial setting
management. Before the regulations of RBTU, the conflict-based model was activated in among
Rail, Bus, Tram related employees. However, along with time, this model becomes superfluous,
and nowadays the past model is ineffective also to deliver national interest related outcomes also.
In this concern, Union has taken the action steps to provide collaborative models in the industrial
relationship where employees have the scope to raise their voice to the employers about their
problems and advantages. It is found to be present, that such a change management system
manifested by RBTU has improvised the incentive ad pay-out structure of employees along with
the enhanced level of productivity.
The effectiveness of RBTU:
RTBU has played an active role in the management of employees along with their firm
belief that, the productivity of employees is a significant thing ad it should be placed at the heart
of workplace relation system in Australia. Flexibility in the workplace related activities of
employees is highly needed according to RBTU, and it is crucial to enhance the productivity of
employees. It has a great significance in the maintenance of International competitiveness of
Australian Supermarket.
It is true that, from the initiation of Fair Work Act, the rate of real wage is significantly low in
Australia. As a result, the share of labors income value has been depreciating since past decades.
Due to the real wage is very low so it is observed from the enormous report that, labor share value
had depreciated to 4% in 2004. It was mainly observed among the employees of mining
employees and the trade-related employees due to the enhanced price of minerals adraw materials.
Due to such inconveniences in this sector, it is also seemed to be present that, the phenomena of

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jobless growth occurred in the Australian market. In this situation, the marketplace and scope
expanded their regime, but numbers of employees become small according to requirement
(Bishop & Cassidy, 2017). RBTU had taken a crucial role at this moment, through hindering most
of the enterprises to take the advantages of the Fair Work Act by appearing between employees
and employers as an intermediate body of negotiation. RBTU has proved their effectiveness in the
NSW based North West Rail Lik projects also. In this entire project, enterprises utilized
technology in such a manner which completely removed the utilization of employees from the
sector of the Australian railway. For example, in this project 230 CCTV cameras were taken the
place of platform employees, driverless trains removes the designation of train drivers and on the
other hand smart card-based ticketing system replace the ticket sellers (Lowe, 2018). In this North
West Link railway transportation system, it is observed that how technology helped employers to
be grown and expanded enough, but there is o space for employees. As a result, the market for
employees becomes diminished (Bishop, 2018). In this situation, RBTU had taken a significant
role to negotiate with employers that year-o-year growth in the transportation should be
distributed among the workers also. Otherwise, it will be discrimination, which will be the
breaching of workplace-related regulations also (Chua & Robinson, 2018). In the SW project of
Australian railway, RBTU has raised their voice that, along with growth and expansion of the
industry, it is highly crucial to be careful about the growth of employee benefits. Protests from the
voice of RBTU helped the employees to come back their position to some instance because
employers negotiate in some agreement and recruit employees with their wages. Another
outstanding example of the effectiveness of RTBU can be seen from the example of Aurizon
Company. This exemplified company had gone through a financial loss. In this time, this
company had signed fourteen agreement of negotiation to reduce their labor cost amount. Just
after this, o the next year Aurizon has enjoyed the financial profitability of $325 which was the
triple amount of their base years (Preston, 2018). RBTU has raised their voices against this
company also because; if this practice continues one time there would be no place for bargaining
also.
Betterment of the future activities of RBTU:
For the future betterment of the activities of the RBTU, it is essential for RBTU to take
enormous training from international seminars. It will help them to be more cautious about the

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surrounding world, and in turn, this union can provide better services to the employees. In the
circumstances of Australia, as there is an excellent crisis about the real wage structure of labors,
so Union has to be educated about the management and HRM policies also. To improve RBTU
activities, some recommendations are provided below (Preston 2018).
1. RTBU has to make a thorough inquiry, to consider enormous ways which will strengthen the
communication between productivity I transportation projects of Australian federal government r
other enterprises and real wage of employees. It will help the workers to grow enough
economically also. In this term, such a wage improvement also helps the national economic
condition of Australia along with the improvements in the workplace environment of Australia.
As a result, labors will also get the scope to be economically flourished, and such a progression
will help them to expand the job market eradicating the jobless growth of the industry.
2. RBTU should consider an auditing system to inquire that I Australian job market for labors there
is any violation of regulations or not. Continuation of such inquiries or audit will help the union to
find out all kinds of breaching related activities occurred with labors (Sabia et al., 2017).
3. Proper negotiation power maintenance will be highly useful for RBTU because it will help the
Australian job market to be appropriately flourished. On the other when labors will get fair wages
it will improvise the working culture. Australia job market also enjoys proper expansion along
with prudently active workplace environment.
4. RBTU will perform their role more effectively through examining all the ways where the scope of
co-operation and transparency will be improved in the entire automated negotiation system. As a
result, RBTU will get the scope to gain high confidence from the labor community about the
integrity management of enterprise related bargaining system (Oliver & Yu, 2017).
5. RBTU had raised their voice from a long time ago, to introduce alternative models of governance
in Australia. When RBTU promotes the collaborative model in labor wage structure in a definite
way workplace environment will be improved. In this aspect, maintenance of Co-determination
based model can be utilized (Mooi-Reci & Wooden, 2017). This model is very much innovative.
As a result, maintenance of such a model will help the Australian transportation based enterprises
to provide innovative workplace environment, culture, and activities with the labors.
6. RBTU have to raise their voice again the anti-competitive nature for restricting their power
according to the provisions of Competition and Consumer Act (2010) or CCA. It will help RBTU
to provide a significant impact on the workplace relationship related framework (Bosch, 2018).

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Relevant theories on the roles of union and their behavior:
Collective bargaining theory:
In this context, the collaborative bargaining theory is the most relevant one. In the
previous time, after jungle law, the most dominant was democracy in Australia. However, after
the initiation of the Fair Act, all the enterprises had started to make their advantages (Baird &
Lansbury, 2018). In this time, rail, bus tram Union of Australia (RTBU) has taken part to
introduce the Collaborative bargaining model. It is practiced in the best way in Germany and I
that country there is a great work environment along with a relationship between employee and
employer. According to this collaborative model, all the labors in a particular department should
be envisaged as a unit, and all of them should abide by uniform rules of negotiations,
interpretation, administration and the agreements. As a result, it has helped the organization to
provide wages, working hours and workplace conditions uniquely for all of their employees.
Collaborative bargaining model relies on the model of uniformity for all of the labors (Brown &
Wright, 2018). It is also supported by RBTU, Australia to provide the same kinds of wages, and
the working environment for all of their employees. This model is beneficial to promote
collaboration between union representatives and the management of employees about labor
wages, and other term, conditions of the employment of labors. Such a model introduces the
systems of agreement where labor wage, terms, and conditions are provided to labors I presence
of union representatives and management group. It can enable a layperson also about the terms
and condition of employment of labor.

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Figure 1: Collective bargaining model in Australia RBTU
Source: Pekarek et al., 2017
In this model of union-related activities, collective bargaining consists of two words where the
common word points towards the collective bunch of labors where bargaining means negotiation
which is mainly driven by union representatives (Ilsøe et al., 2018). I this system, union
representatives bargain with the organizational management group to provide more advantages to
their employees as much as possible. It is beneficial to promote a great work environment in Rail,
Bus, Tram transportation system based job field.
This model is also supported in The International Labor Organizations Working manual also. In
this collaborative process, union and management, both are the regulatory body to provide a better
workplace environment and wage structure for its employees. It will provide a better workplace
environment along with an advantageous position to the workers. This union based model
promotes a sizeable flexible field for workers where the union is also beside them to raise their
voice for the betterment of labor (Bosch & Weinkopf, 2017). It is very crucial in the context of
Australia because, in all transportation system including rail, tram, bus, and others, labors are very
crucial, but they had been deprived of justified wage structure since a long past. The royal
commission of Australia has emphasized over this collective bargaining from the perspectives of
conflict management in the industry (Boyle, 2018). The most efficient thing of collective
bargaining theory of Unions is that, if any issues occur between employees and employers, there
is scope for mitigation of these issues through the negotiation in table I presence of union

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representatives. It is helpful for the diffusion of every kind of tense situation in the workplace
(Van Aaken & List, 2017).
Co-determination based model:
This is based model first introduced in Germany (Müller-Jentsch, 2018). It is nowadays
very much famous for its innovative nature of activities. According to this system, all of the
enterprises should be composed of a two-tiered model. In the upper hierarchical model, there will
be an executive board comprising of CEO and other senior officers. On the other hand, there will
be a non-executive board for the employees and other stakeholders of the company (Velte &
Stiglbauer, 2018).
Figure 2: Co-determination model
Source: Benassi & Dorigatti, 2018
In this co-determination based system, both of the workers and management group can take part
in the organizational decision making the part. In this aspect, the workers union also gets a scope
to propose their new ideas to elect members of the supervisory board. In this co-determination
based system, supervisory board will be composed of both elected workers and managers along
with proposed representatives of the union. Through the maintenance of this system, the entire
tense situation will be overcome through the only discussion along with innovative ideas of the
supervisory board (Magotsch & Morgenroth, 2018).

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This popular idea of a union is also supported by UK and U.S.A based countries also.
Introduction of this system is very crucial as in Australia labor wage growth is very low ad it is a
stagnant market. So, when workers and management both of them will take part in the decision-
making system, also have a proportionate share of profit of the company for the workers also. It
will promote the socio-economical growth of workers. It will help Australia to get rid of their
jobless growth system. This model of Union was propounded by the German Constitutional Court
and also supported by Co-determination Act of 1976 (Dunnett & Gregory, 2017). In this
assignment, the introduction of this co-determination model is highly emphasized. This German-
based model is the only way to provide some scopes to the workers to take part in company
performance structure directly and take the share of company share also. Above all, the
participation from all hierarchy of the company will provide scope to the employees to share their
ideas with all. As a result, confliction management will also be flexible in such a condition.
The implications of the union’s role:
It can be implicated from this discussion that, RBTU has taken a tremendous active part
to the West Australia Rail link projects of NSW along with Aurizon and many other companies of
Australia where the labor was in most ignored condition. As a result of their stagnant position in
the job market, there was no place for the growth of the labor market. In this discussion,
numerous recommendations are provided from all perspectives where following the German-
based co-determination model is the most dominant one (Doherty, 2018). Union has to take an
active role to protect labors from all kinds of exploitation ad breaching related activities.
O the other hand, RBTU has a crucial role in the managerial policies and HRM related activities
(Cohen & Ladaique, 2018). According to the collective bargaining theory, Union has an
intriguing part to provide a thorough co-operation to the employers as labors can get a justified
salary, along with working environments along with other terms and conditions (Boyle, 2018).
The proper manifestation of all these activities also helps the union to protect all organizations
from strike or ceasing of their operations. It is explicit in this context that, Unions like RBTU are
the connecting link between labors and the employers. Union has the fundamental role to
negotiate with employers (Farrell, 2017). It will promote good practice in the entire class for
joining in the labor sector of Australia. Promotion of good practices, handsome wages, proper

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maintenance of working couture and environment through the help of RBTU will help labors to
gain their place of dignity in their workplace.
Conclusion:
It can be concluded from the entire discussion that, labors are situated on the
underlying or grassroots level of the organization. So, effective maintenance of their wages,
working environment, providing the systems of a healthy and safe lifestyle are intrigue
responsibility of employers. However, for a long time, due to the presence of the Fair Work Act
(1996), employers only take the advantages of cutting down labor cost to make their service value
reasonable. It has created a vulnerable situation for their employees. In this assignment, some
recommendations are also provided. Proper maintenance of all the recommendations along with
actual manifestation of German-based co-determination model in RBTU help labors to get proper
wages and working culture. At this point, the role of Rail, Tram, and Bus union will be the most
successful one. RBTU also believes it has this co-determination based model has the potentiality
in serving Australian labors in the best way. However, apart from any one of the framework or
corrective model, it can be analyzed and supported from many sources that, Australian union has
to change their framework system along with time. It will provide them with the proper flexibility
to mode with time and be updated with the world. It will help the labors to think that they are also
a part of the country along with their shares in the national income. In the end, it can be
implicated that, Productivity Commission of Australia has a significant role in surveying all of
these activities and then labor-related issues will be wholly mitigated in Australia.

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