For jaded rail commuters, this is a city circle of misery

Like plenty of anxious parents, I spent the summer holidays prepping my daughter for her public transport commute to her new high school several suburbs from home. Gently, I reminded her more than once that we could not drive her in the painfully slow morning peak hour. One practice run (on two modes of transport), and she was happy to go solo. I could see the pride in her 12-year-old eyes.

It lasted a week. On Friday, we were in the car, crawling through that peak-hour traffic as Sydney’s train network ground to a halt. On a typical Sydney day about 800,000 people catch a train. That dropped to 300,000 last Friday. Many opted to work from home, but thousands more had to find another way to work or school. Plenty of them were on the roads.

Railroaded? Commuters amid the train disrupttion, and RTBU NSW secretary Toby Warnes.Credit: Fairfax Media

Hundreds of train drivers called in sick last Friday, the morning after negotiations broke down again between the combined rail unions and the NSW Labor government. There have been many sticking points, but the latest was a $4500 payment to rail workers struck under the former Coalition government. The Minns government is refusing to continue that payment, insisting it was a “one-off”.

There have been other sticking points during the protracted dispute: the union’s demand for 50¢ fares, 24-hour train services and fare-free days, all designed to win over exhausted commuters. But for anyone who was stranded on platforms on Friday, or forced into cars, a sweetener of a 3am train service would have done little to lift moods.

What will boost spirits, however, is a break from the chaos. Late on Wednesday, the full bench of the Fair Work Commission ruled that the rail unions must stop their strikes until July, so negotiations can continue with the temperature turned down.

We have been here before – every three years, in fact – and we will be back here again in three years when the rail workers’ enterprise agreement is again up for negotiation. Unlike other frontline workers in NSW, such as nurses, teachers and paramedics, train drivers and guards are covered by the federal industrial relations system. That’s because Sydney Trains is a corporation.

Under the federal system, there is limited time for workers to take industrial action, but when they do, they go hard. Under the NSW system, workers can take action more easily, but they are forced into arbitration, which means industrial unrest ends quickly.

But there is also another dynamic. There is widespread public goodwill for essential workers which does not extend to train drivers.

Not only is nursing viewed as one of the most trusted professions, it was integral during the pandemic. We asked a lot of nurses, not least working for two years in head-to-toe plastic on the front line of a health crisis. There is a similar public sympathy for paramedics. Teachers, too, especially in the eyes of any parent who had to homeschool their offspring during lockdowns.

The Rail, Tram and Bus Union can demand the government deliver treats such as cut-price fares, but that will not win over commuters who have a simple wish. They want their trains to turn up. And so the union’s most effective industrial tool has been a blunt one. That is, to bring the city’s train network to a standstill.

The RTBU is banking on commuter anger being redirected at the government. After all, Premier Chris Minns will have to face the wrath of voters at the ballot box, while elected union officials only answer to their members. This emboldens union bosses to push on with what Minns calls “industrial bastardry”.

It has not always been like this. Nick Lewocki was a long-term RTBU boss when Labor was last in power in NSW. Lewocki was acutely aware of the need to keep the public on side during disputes. When his members voted to strike in 2008 during World Youth Day – the Catholic festival that drew 500,000 people to the city – he was full of angst. “To be honest, I was very worried about how it might be perceived by the public,” Lewocki later confessed in an interview with the Herald. The action was ultimately averted after then-state transport minister John Watkins brokered a peace deal with Lewocki. When he retired in 2009, there had not been a full-scale train strike in 10 years.

Just as there is little public sympathy for train drivers, the union movement is fast tiring of the RTBU. Gerard Hayes, the Labor heavyweight who leads the Health Services Union, is desperately worried about the damage the increasingly militant RTBU is doing to the union brand. “Through COVID, the movement had a very good name,” Hayes said on Wednesday. “But I don’t think holding the city to ransom is all that smart.”

Stewart Little, who heads the Public Service Association, was more circumspect, although still clearly frustrated. “There needs to be a specialised panel in the Fair Work Commission that deals with the essential workers,” Little said, before warning that rail strikes prevent frontline workers from getting to work.

Minns and Treasurer Daniel Mookhey have stood their ground, refusing to bow to the RTBU’s shifting demands. But commuters, employers and businesses have had enough. This latest dispute will be resolved and trains will return to regular timetabling. Then the RTBU should learn from the days of the Lewocki regime, when commuters mattered as much as their members.

Alexandra Smith is state political editor.

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