Private company Transdev is planning a major reduction in
staffing on the Wellington region’s commuter rail network,
using the introduction of cashless ticketing as the pretext
to eliminate more than two-thirds of Passenger Operator (PO)
positions.
The company released a “staff
consultation” document on August 3 which stated that
Metlink, the Greater Wellington Regional Council’s (GWRC)
transport arm, and Transdev were “facing ongoing financial
pressures.” To “operate more efficiently,” they plan
to reduce the current workforce of 78 POs to just 25 by July
2027, destroying 53 positions.
In a message to
workers, Managing Director Tonia Haskell claimed that plans
for a “cashless future” meant “we will need fewer
onboard staff” to sell and check tickets. The company
wants to discontinue 27 roles from September 1 by using a
“sinking lid approach”—ending recruitment and
encouraging staff to retire, quit, or take up unspecified
“redeployment opportunities.” A further 26 roles are to
be cut from July 1, 2027.
From September 1, Transdev
wants to reduce the standard number of POs on a four-car
train from 1 to 0, leaving only one onboard staff member,
the train manager (not counting the driver). The number of
POs on rarer eight-car trains will be cut from 2 to 1. The
initial cuts would apply to the Kapiti and Hutt Valley
lines.
The second phase, from July 1, 2027, will
discontinue 26 more positions by taking POs off six-car
trains, leaving train managers (TMs) to run them alone. This
poses a significant safety risk; currently a TM can only
operate a six-car train alone by locking up two of the cars.
The cuts would also be extended to the Johnsonville and
Wairarapa lines.
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A “consultation document” given
to workers states that the first phase of cuts would
implement minimum staffing levels outlined in the
Multi-Employer Collective Agreement 2024-2027 (MECA), which
was backed by the Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMTU).
The MECA explicitly states that these minimum staffing
levels should only apply “where staff unavailability or a
disruption situation dictates” and “cannot be planned in
advance.” Transdev now proposes to make these lower levels
the norm.
It is already common for a train manager to
be the only staff member on a four-car service, and even on
a six-car train, due to staff shortages. TMs have refused to
run eight-car trains with just one PO. The planned cuts will
place even greater responsibility and stress on
TMs.
Most POs are part-time, on a minimum of 20 hours
a week, and receive just $28.95 an hour, which is falsely
promoted by the union leadership as a “living wage.”
Now, most of these workers face losing their jobs as
unemployment in New Zealand continues to increase.
The
GWRC intends to end cash payments on passenger rail services
by March 2027. Transdev justifies its job cuts by pointing
to figures that show cash sales onboard trains have
declined, with more passengers using the electronic Snapper
cards.
The discussion document claims that “a
reduction in workload would be expected” due to cashless
payments, even though it notes that POs will still be taking
electronic payments.
Passenger Operators have never
simply been ticket sellers. They assist Train Managers with
passenger supervision and platform work, help customers with
accessibility needs, and assist during emergencies and
unexpected incidents. A single TM cannot simultaneously
supervise an entire four- or six-car train while carrying
out all their safety and operational
responsibilities.
Haskell gave the real reason for the
cuts in her statement that “Transdev Wellington continues
to operate at a financial loss” and the change proposal
“presents an opportunity to reduce those
losses.”
Transdev, which operates in 19 countries,
does not publish specific financial results for its
Wellington operation. In 2025, however, the global company
reported an operating profit of €244 million ($NZ479
million).
The cost cutting drive is in line with the
contract signed in 2016, when the GWRC privatised the
operation of regional train services, outsourcing them to
Transdev and Hyundai Rotem, which promised cost savings of
$100 million over 15 years. This is being done at the
expense of workers’ jobs, wages and
conditions.
Transdev claims that “no decisions have
been made” and that staff cutbacks will have a
“modest” impact. The restructuring timetable tells
another story. Transdev began “consultation” on August
3, leaving just three weeks for “feedback from staff”
(ending on August 24) before announcing a final decision on
August 27.
The company’s preferred mechanism is
“natural attrition”: a corporate euphemism for
destroying positions without immediate compulsory
redundancies. Transdev proposes vague “redeployment” of
“capable and willing staff into other roles where
opportunities exist.” It did not specify any such
“opportunities.”
The planned elimination of 53
jobs has not been reported in the media. The RMTU has made
no public statement, keeping the broader working class in
the dark.
A union notice to Wellington train workers
said a reduction in PO roles and onboard staffing was
“unacceptable” and “is unsafe and creates risks to
staff, passengers, and members of the public.” It stated,
however, that the RMTU “strongly opposes the changes
proposed by Transdev in their current form”
(emphasis added), leaving the door open for some other form
of cuts to be negotiated.
A recent train crash near
Khandallah station, which injured six people including two
crew members, highlighted unsafe conditions on the
network.
A union branch meeting is scheduled for
August 19. No industrial action has been proposed. The union
has called on members to submit examples of “the integral
role that passenger operators fill in our work,” which
will be forwarded to Transdev “during the consultation
process.”
The union bureaucracy has a decades-long
history of working hand-in-hand with management, the council
and successive governments to suppress opposition to
layoffs, wage stagnation and pro-corporate
restructuring.
On July 15, 2018 Transdev discontinued
11 full-time Passenger Operator positions with workers
taking “voluntary” redundancy or other rail jobs. The
union assisted in the redundancy process.
In September
2024 the RMTU pushed through an agreement that increased
wages for Wellington workers by just 4.7 percent in the
first year, followed by two years of increases pegged to
inflation—effectively a wage freeze.
The rail unions
that preceded the RMTU opposed any mobilisation against the
historic attacks on railway workers during the 1980s and
1990s. They accepted the demands by the 1984-1990 Labour
Party government that the state-owned New Zealand Railways
(NZR) had to be transformed into a profit-making business
with the elimination of thousands of jobs.
An
industrial and political campaign must be organised to stop
the latest job cuts. Improved technology, such as cashless
payment systems, should be used to improve conditions for
passengers and staff—not as a pretext to slash jobs and
increase corporate profits.
Workers should
demand:
- No destruction of any Passenger Operator
positions! - No reduction in
staffing! - Increased staffing to fill current
shortages! - A substantial pay increase for all
workers to meet the soaring cost of living.
Such
a fight will only be carried out in a rebellion against the
RMTU. Workers must build new organisations: rank-and-file
committees, democratically controlled by workers and
independent of the union bureaucracy. These committees must
fight to link Wellington rail workers with other public
transport workers across NZ and with workers employed by
Transdev in Australia and internationally, who are facing
the same attacks.
The Trotskyist movement calls for
the building of the International Workers’ Alliance of
Rank-and-File Committees to unite workers across borders,
which is essential in the struggle against giant
multinational corporations like Transdev and Hyundai
Rotem.
The defence of rail jobs, wages and working
conditions above all requires a political struggle against
Labour and the Greens, which have leading positions in the
GWRC, and all the parties in parliament, which support the
subordination of public transport to corporate profit. We
call on workers to contact and join the Socialist Equality
Group, which fights for the abolition of capitalism and the
reorganisation of society on the basis of
socialism.
