This has been a long and drawn out process. The long and the short of it is we are waiting for CIE to make you an offer.

The last thing we want now is something to hold this up.

It seems that ‘thing’, is an individual action taken by a number of our members. In simple terms. A number of CANZ members have lodged Personal Grievances. This has been done without consultation with their union and as such is seen as an individual action. This means we do not support you in this action.

CIE have sent you a reply and for once we agree with what they are saying. You are not taking a militant stance. You are dividing and helping to conquer your union.

The only effective action will be one that we all take, if you all agree to take any such action.

I have attached a copy of the CIE response to the personal grievances that have been sent out, and as I said earlier the CIE response is entirely correct.

I will be asking questions on how this came about and how it is that a number of CANZ members are all issuing the same personal grievance. The main concern I have is that this action has been undertaken by a group of frustrated members wanting to get things moving. Unfortunately all they have achieved is to undermine our Negotiating team and most of all under mining our Organiser.

We can now only hope that CIE don’t use this to delay these talks even further. At this stage we are still meeting at the agreed date the 22nd of September.

Rest assured as soon as we get an offer to bring around we will. You will then have the chance to tell us how we as a collective proceed.

Beven Hanlon
CANZ National Officer