Source (paywall).

The regional arm of NSW’s railways is set to be folded into a single passenger train …

Following two days of intense negotiations, rail unions said the government had agreed to abolish NSW TrainLink and bring all passenger services within one railway agency, which would help fast-track ways to find savings amid pay talks by removing duplication.

NSW TrainLink runs regional train and coach services including the diesel-powered Xplorer and XPT fleets, which operate as far afield as Melbourne, Brisbane and Broken Hill.

Following a government-commissioned review, the oversight of intercity trains, which operate from Sydney to Newcastle, Wollongong and the Blue Mountains, has been transferred to Sydney Trains.

According to the unions, the government also gave the nod on Thursday to one of their key claims for a multi-enterprise agreement, which is a protection for workers if parts of the state’s transport assets are outsourced or privatised.

Workers would be entitled to the same pay and conditions as they had in the public sector if their jobs were outsourced to a private company.

An application for a multi-enterprise agreement is already before the industrial umpire, and now needs the government to consent to it. The Fair Work Commission will then consider the merits of the application and whether the two sides can legally negotiate it.

Warnes said the government had also agreed to insert a redundancy deed into a new enterprise agreement, instead of it being separate. It would mean the 64-week cap on redundancy payments would roll over in future agreements.

The next two weeks of intensive bargaining will involve a Treasury official assessing the savings and productivity gains the union had identified as part of the wages deal.

The government’s opening offer has been for wage rises of 9.5 per cent over three years, as well as a further 0.5 per cent in the first if a deal is reached in a “timely manner”. It is substantially lower than demands from the RTBU and five other unions for a 32 per cent pay rise over four years.