Damien Tudehope: Train strike ‘all about the dollars’
A union’s planned rail strike is “all about the dollars”, according to a high-ranking NSW politician, who says he can’t interpret it any other way.
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NSW Finance Minister Damien Tudehope has hit out at Rail, Tram and Bus Union secretary Alex Claassens as rail workers in Sydney prepare to walk off the job.
Sydney commuters have been warned of another rail strike planned from midnight on Wednesday until 4am on Thursday.
The union claims the strike is over the safety of internationally manufactured trains, but Mr Tudehope says Mr Claassens is using the rail system and commuters as part of his “strategy” to achieve a 20 per cent pay increase.
“I can interpret it no other way ... it has to be about the dollars,” Mr Tudehope told Sydney radio 2GB on Wednesday morning.
“He will spin it whatever way he wants to… this is now about pay, but he will dress it up as a safety issue,” he said.
“And that’s just plain wrong.”
Mr Tudehope said the government had assured the union that work would be done to modify the upgraded fleet, but Mr Claassens “keeps changing the goalposts”.
“We have conceded to do work to a perfectly safe train that the union has requested, so what else is it?” Mr Tudehope said.
Mr Tudehope said both Acting Transport Minister Natalie Ward and Transport Minister David Elliott had provided the RTBU boss with written assurances, but that hadn’t been enough.
Mr Tudehope said Mr Elliott had “put his job on the line in circumstances where he has agreed to this work being done”.
“And yet Alex keeps the goalposts in terms of what he wants from the government,” he said.
In a letter sent to Unions NSW assistant secretary Thomas Costa and Mr Claassens – obtained by The Australian – Mr Tudehope and Ms Ward urge the unions to forego plans to strike, saying proceeding would be at “significant cost to the people of NSW”.
“It is our view that Unions NSW and the RTBU’s stated objections to the government’s offer are without basis and as such we request that you withdraw from further industrial action as we move towards a resolution of the enterprise bargaining process,” the letter said.
Mr Tudehope told 2GB that he was “pleading” with Mr Claassens to rethink the strike, saying Sydneysiders couldn’t afford the disruption.
“We just can’t afford this for the businesses, for the people getting their kids to school,” he said.
“I plead with him… there has got to be a better way.”
Originally published as Damien Tudehope: Train strike ‘all about the dollars’
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