Union accuses TfNSW of protecting ‘fat cat bureaucrats’ in job cull

The Public Service Association has lambasted Transport for NSW for allegedly protecting the positions of senior executives as it moves to cut 950 roles.

Public Service Association (PSA) general secretary Stewart Little has accused Transport for NSW (TfNSW) of protecting senior executives in its proposal to cut 950 roles within the government department by the end of the year.

Announced last Wednesday (23 July), the department plans to reduce the number of divisions from 10 to seven to ensure that “more resources are directed to core transport services in communities across the state”.

“These decisions are never easy – they affect real people and teams who’ve contributed to vital work. But they are necessary to ensure we have a sustainable structure that provides the best possible value to the people of NSW,” said TfNSW secretary Josh Murray.

According to Little and the PSA, the department has one in four of all the senior executives in the entire NSW public sector, despite having just 16,000 of the sector’s 400,000 staff.

Although these executives make up a bulk of the department, the PSA claimed that a majority of them have been “quarantined” from these job cuts.

“Transport Minister John Graham is running a protection racket for senior executives, he needs to bite the bullet and clear the decks so people who perform direct frontline services keep their jobs,” said Little.

In a statement given to HR Leader, TfNSW reiterated that the department is set to remove 300 senior executive roles by 2027, with 200 of these already finalised.

“This represents 27 per cent of all senior executive roles and is well beyond the NSW government’s election commitment to reduce senior ranks by 15 per cent.

“The next part of this reform now needs to take place to right-size the department in its new structure that will make it sustainable and prioritise frontline services.

“While it is clear workforce savings must be found within Transport for NSW, these will not impact frontline service delivery roles,” it said.

“Transport for NSW is responsible for approximately 48 per cent of this state’s forward capital investment, which is why it has a commensurate share of executive roles required to run billion-dollar projects.”

Little claimed that the redundancy packages these senior executives can receive hinder the department from following through on mass cuts for their roles.

“The truth is it just costs too much to sack these fat cat executives, they’re entitled to voluntary redundancies of 38 weeks pay, which can be up to $400,000, so they hang around for years, while our members on $75,000 get punted.

“But it’s more than that, these are the staff the minister meets with, the ones he runs into in the tearoom, the ones he knows by name, it’s hard to sack these people, as opposed to the frontline staff who are just numbers on a page to him.”

Overall, the 950 roles that are set to be cut will be finalised by the conclusion of 2025, putting pressure on other departments to “formally consider” hiring these workers in compliance with Chris Minns’ Workplace Mobility Placement Policy, as reported by The Mandarin.

The policy requires the “home agency” to proactively share information with other departments, which gives impacted employees the “best opportunity” of continuing their obligation within the public sector.

The other departments must “fairly review the capabilities” of affected employees, with the government having the power to step in if they believe that a department has failed in their due diligence to consider hiring an redundancy affected employee.