Toll acting the bully says union

By PAM GRAHAM

The Rail & Maritime Transport Union has lost patience with the "Australian bully boys" who bought Tranz Rail, and with Finance Minister Michael Cullen's dealings with them.

On Wednesday, Cullen lambasted Toll Holdings for dragging its feet on implementing an agreement for the Government to buy back the railway network as a June 30 deadline looms.

The attack came at the same time as a hardening of the union attitude to the company that bought 84.2 per cent of Tranz Rail last year.

Union general secretary Wayne Butson, who welcomed the Australians on arrival as less ideological than Tranz Rail's old management, said: "I'm sick to the back teeth with the absolute arrogance of Toll NZ."

He was extremely disappointed with Cullen for not nationalising the whole company last year.

From there Cullen could have controlled the track and dictated whatever terms he wanted for a future operator.

Toll was "storming across the country", said Butson, who said workers were told in Auckland yesterday that passenger trains between Auckland and Wellington were "history".

Toll's chief executive David Jackson said this was not correct.

No decision had been made about the business plan for Tranz Scenic, the long-distance passenger operation. Toll last month bought back half of Tranz Scenic from a partner.

Jackson said the union had been involved in all kinds of decisions in the past and this would not happen in the future. His idea of consultation was different to the union's.

Butson said: "They're not consulting us. They're just going around the workforce destabilising people, making statements that are alarmist.

"We're confronting an attitude and a mindset and a philosophy that we have not seen since the dark days of the Employment Contracts Act."

Toll is not agreeing to multi-employer agreements with the operator of passenger trains in Auckland.

Butson said he could not understand the company's attitude because it was putting decisions which it could negotiate with workers in the hands of a court.

Cullen's adviser Chris Mackenzie said negotiations with Toll on the track buyback continued yesterday and both sides went away to consider issues.

He said talks were progressing.