To: John Graham, NSW Minister for Transport
Recognise the professionals who keep NSW moving
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We are the Transport Senior Service Managers (TSSMs) who provide the engineering, scientific, technical and professional leadership that underpins the Transport Cluster.
We call on the Minister to:
- Convene discussions with our representative unions immediately regarding any current or proposed arrangements affecting TSSMs.
- Restore Award coverage where existing classifications reflect the duties TSSMs already perform.
- Transition engineering leadership roles into the RMS Salaried Staff Award, including Engineer Level 5 and Level 6 where appropriate.
- Transition professional, specialist and managerial leadership roles into the Transport for NSW Award using USS12 and USS13 where appropriate.
- Support implementation of the Senior Professional and Managerial Classification (SPMC) in the Sydney Trains and NSW TrainLink Enterprise Agreement for TSSMs who wish to become direct Sydney Trains employees.
- Guarantee transition without financial disadvantage, loss of continuity of service, or any requirement to compete for positions we already perform.
- Work with employees and their unions to build a fair, transparent and sustainable classification framework.
We remain proud to serve the people of New South Wales. We are asking the Government to show the same commitment by recognising the leadership and expertise the Transport Cluster depends on.
Sign now if you're a TSSM, or stand with the professionals who keep NSW moving.
Why is this important?
Every day, we keep New South Wales moving across our roads, railways, buses, ferries and bridges. We lead the teams delivering and maintaining critical transport infrastructure, and we make the complex technical and operational decisions that determine the safety, reliability and performance of the State's network. We are accountable for engineering governance, technical assurance, statutory compliance, risk management and critical safety decisions. We oversee major programs and manage significant public investment.
We accept these responsibilities because we believe in public service. But the TSSM employment framework no longer fairly recognises what is expected of us.
While remuneration and conditions have improved for Award and Enterprise Agreement-covered employees, the relative position of TSSMs has declined. Many of us now supervise employees whose total remuneration equals or exceeds our own, despite carrying significantly lower accountability. In accepting these appointments, we relinquished flex leave, overtime, travel time, leave loading, professional engineering provisions and other long-standing entitlements.
Now, discussions about our future pay and conditions are happening without meaningful engagement with us or our unions. Decisions about our employment should not be made behind closed doors.
The solution already exists. Classifications in the RMS Salaried Staff Award and the Transport for NSW Award already recognise the complexity and accountability of many TSSM roles. This is not about special treatment. It is about using the frameworks we already have.
