New racing deal signed

Glen Atwell
AFTER recent industrial action left jockeys and their horses stranded behind the barriers at a Sandown race meeting, the involved parties have since settled their bets.
The Melbourne Racing Club (MRC) and the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) have successfully renegotiated a new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA) for groundstaff employed at Sandown and Caulfield Racecourses after the previous agreement expired on 30 June.
The negotiations boiled over on 13 July when groundstaff walked off the job for 14 minutes during betting before race four, halting the race meeting and causing nationwide broadcasting delays.
The sticking point of the agreement was the removal of a prohibition against forced redundancies.
“The MRC wanted to remove this prohibition, which obviously left our members feeling insecure,” AWU national secretary Bill Shorten said.
But ongoing negotiations cleared the way for both parties to reach agreement on all conditions of the new threeyear EBA.
MRC Chief Executive Warran Brown said he was pleased that the issues had been resolved.
“The club is pleased to have resolved the last of the outstanding issues previously delaying agreement on this matter,” he said.
“All points of variation have now been successfully reconciled to the mutual satisfaction of all parties and we now look forward with much anticipation to next month’s commencement of another exciting new season of racing at Sandown and Classic Caulfield,” he said.