Australian Rail Tram & Bus Industry and Public Transport Corporation of Victoria [1995] IRCA 60

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS COURT OF AUSTRALIA VICTORIA DISTRICT REGISTRY

VI 1510 of 1994

BETWEEN:

AUSTRALIAN RAIL TRAM & BUS INDUSTRY Applicant

AND

PUBLIC TRANSPORT CORPORATION OF VICTORIA Respondent

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

28 February 1995 Judicial Registrar Fleming

Introduction

This is an application under Division 3 Part VIA of the Industrial Relations Act seeking an order requiring the respondent to reinstate the employee and an order that the respondent pay compensation to the employee.

The applicant alleges that the respondent is in breach of section 170DB, section 170DC, and section 170DE of the Industrial Relations Act.

Background

The applicant has been employed with the respondent since 19 September 1977 as a locomotive driver and a suburban train driver. Mr Hurley was terminated on 22 August 1994.

A Summary of The Circumstances Giving Rise To The Termination

The applicant gave evidence that on 30 December 1993 he was on his way home from work and due to a disruption to services on the Footscray line there were lengthy delays. Mr Hurley's evidence is that the train that he caught on this evening was diverted to Footscray where he knew that there would be problems because of the disruption there. Mr Hurley said that he was in uniform on that occasion and that people were asking him what was going on and that as he did not know he pointed across to a group of people who he thought would be able to assist the passengers.

Mr Hurley described the situation where there were many people attempting to get on a bus that had started to reverse into the car park and he describes that scene as "like mass panic as everyone has tried to rush for the bus, one bus for six carriage loads of people". His evidence is that there were about 100 people there on this occasion. Mr Hurley said that while this situation was occurring people were getting pretty angry and that he saw the District Business Manager, Geoffrey Wild standing at the entrance to the bus and "people were yelling and screaming and arguing with him, and instead of trying to tell them what had gone wrong and sort of comfort these passengers, because they get pretty angry, he was abusing them". He was telling them "you know, like you know, just to get on this bus, you know, and they would ask him why he would tell them it was not there business and stuff like this".