A "very worried" Mr Nile said he would seek an assurance the government would uphold the legislation, which includes a guaranteed apprenticeship intake and no forced redundancies before June 2020. "I've had a few emails from employees in the last couple of days, saying that they've got the same concern, that the company seems hell-bent on shedding a lot of the jobs," Mr Nile said. Marked "for official use only", the Ausgrid documents set out three "waves" of changes. The first wave is "commencing or underway" and includes the consolidation of depots and "phase one" of its network operations outsourcing. The key second page of Ausgrid's "Transformation Delivery" document. However, more drastic changes are proposed "pending management decision" beyond the second phase of outsourcing due to begin in December.

From "2016 and beyond" measures include selling off Ausgrid's state-of-the-art Silverwater training centre, a facility opened four years ago at a cost of $75 million. The company's technical training would be outsourced during the same period, when it would begin to "phase out" its apprenticeships. Also in the crosshairs are a range of corporate functions, including call centre operations and "back office processes", both of which have been earmarked for outsourcing from next year. The Electrical Trades Union NSW, which obtained the document, said it shows Ausgrid is planning on taking redundancies far beyond those already announced. Ausgrid said this month it expected to shed 1100 jobs, starting with an initial round of 550 redundancies, in response to a directive from the Australian Energy Regulator to reduce revenue.

There's potential there for thousands of jobs to disappear. Dave McKinley, Electrical Trades Union NSW The company has said a second phase of up to 500 redundancies would be considered following the outcome of its appeal against the regulator's cuts. But the ETU's assistant secretary, Dave McKinley, said it feared Ausgrid was "attempting to gut jobs and services" to ensure a higher price when 50.4 per cent of the company was sold to the private sector on a 99-year lease next year. "They're outsourcing network operations, their call centre, apprentice training, the whole lot," Mr McKinley said. "There's potential there for thousands of jobs to disappear." Ausgrid played down any connection between the sale and its "transformation program", which it said was being put together with Essential Energy and Endeavour Energy.

The document was prepared in response to the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) determination and "has nothing to do with the government's lease", it said. "Ausgrid is committed to maintaining employment levels at 3570 as a result of the AER determination." Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian would not comment about the document, referring questions to Ausgrid.