The different unions are a legacy of past times when the various public
transport sectors were completely independent and uncoordinated. Private
buses were administered by the old Department of Motor Transport,
government buses by the Department of Road Transport and Tramways, later
DGT. The RTBU is a legacy of the railways and tramways, thus a government
employees union that is skilled in the art of squeezing extra benefits out
of politicians who are terrified by the idea of strikes costing votes.
Private bus operators, on the other hand, traditionally didn't tolerate bs.
It's only in very recent times that the two sectors have been brought
together. The unions are a legacy of the old system. The situation in NSW
has brought the TWU and RTBU together in a united front. Other states and
territories, except Brisbane City Council in Queensland, have only the TWU
looking after bus drivers. The average private company has a dim view of
any attempt to bring public service perks into their workplace as they
don't have a bottomless well of taxpayer funding to draw upon. Yes, there
should be common working conditions, but the private sector (with margins
as tight as they are in public transport operational contracts) can't
afford the inefficient lavishing that the public sector tolerates. Tensions
result.

Tony P

What a load of boss-toady right wing crap. How outrageous that workers should use an industrial action tactic that doesn’t alienate the public, like this excellent campaign is doing, eh?

What could be worse than a union that runs a competent campaign. If the privately employed bus drivers have had to put up with inferior working conditions because the union they were stuck with was ineffective, then that situation is well overdue for change.

If the TWU wasn’t aligning with the RTBU guess where their membership would migrate to.

What this reveals is the bludging, parasitic rent seekers of the “private” (but on the government tit) sector are really there for - to erode working conditions and rights, nothing else.

These are not “perks”, they are hard won conditions fought for but a union that isn’t the passive and docile creature of the employers, like the TWU has obviously been in the past. If the TWU is finally waking up to the reality that if they want to maintain membership in this sector, then good for them. If the RTBU and TWU unite and campaign together then the bludging rent seeker parasites and the state government's ideological pogrom against decent working conditions in this sector will fail.

If the private sector “can’t afford” the established and pre-existing working conditions it has no right to exist. Like all underpaying wage thief employers they don’t have a viable business. It would be interesting to compare what they pay the managers and executives compared to the actual workers, the productive people thy steal the value of their labour from.

They could make some cuts there so the drivers get more.

Tony.