The PSA was in the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) on Friday 19 September 2025, continuing conciliation on the TfNSW proposal to meet a “savings target” by cutting 950 jobs. The PSA and other unions are seeking to influence the decision making in how the stated $414 million in labour related savings (of which TfNSW declare $279 million will be saved through job cuts) is actually achieved.

The PSA has put forward a number of alternative plans directly from members, that could drastically reduce the need for mass job cuts, including:

• A reduction of the amount spent on consultant and contractors, separate from labour hire.
• A reduction in the number of Transport Senior Service Executives (TSSEs), and in particular the number of TSSEs that have no direct reports, or that report to each other.
• Gaining efficiencies from procurement practices
• Reviewing office leasing expenses

While TfNSW has already made a commitment to reduce the number of labour hire employees before cutting any direct permanent employees, they confirmed there were also additional Professional Service Contractors (PSCs) in the TfNSW establishment.

While TfNSW claim that PSCs provide specialist services and skill sets and are generally used in a program/project/ad hoc capacity, there will be a further meeting this week to review these contractors and identify whether further savings can be made from this group.

It was revealed that there are a number of “intraband” Transport Senior Service Executives (TSSEs) – which includes directors reporting to each other. Bizarrely this includes TSSEs that have zero direct reports.

The PSA cannot accept that TfNSW should continue to allow senior executives that have nobody reporting to them to continue receiving their extremely generous pay packets of between $230,000 and $648,220 a year.

If TfNSW want to make savings from their workforce, this is the first place to start. This matter will continue to be a point of discussion this week, as the PSA have a number of specific examples of where duplicated Executive roles could be deleted to stop the need for a Transport Senior Service Manager (TSSM) or Award role from being cut.

The PSA is back in the IRC on Thursday 25 September to continue conciliation of the dispute.