Furious Premier to take rail union to the Fair Work Commission in bid to halt further industrial action

The Daily Telegraph can reveal Dominic Perrottet will be taking the Rail Tram and Bus Union to the Fair Work Commission in a bid to block a second consecutive week of industrial action.

The NSW government has commenced proceedings on Monday morning against the Rail, Tram and Bus Union in the Fair Work Commission, claiming unionists were hurting mums, dads and families.

As revealed by The Daily Telegraph, Mr Perrottet said the unions wanted families to foot the bill for their demands and were impacting small businesses with their industrial action.

“The funding that comes for public sector wages doesn’t come from me. It comes from mums and dads and families across our state who pay taxes and how unfair it is on them, who are not earning wages at the same rate as the public sector, for the public sector to be demanding that if everybody else pays the debt for them to have a substantial increase at their expense,” he said.

“We shouldn’t be inconveniencing our parents, our schoolchildren, our communities, our small businesses … We’ve had small businesses close for months during the pandemic. (They) couldn’t make $1 during the pandemic. And those small businesses rely on public transport every day.”

Mr Perrottet vowed to drag rail unionists to the employee relations watchdog declaring “enough is enough” after the latest escalation of a months-long feud between the parties.

Premier Dominic Perrottet said the rail industrial action is adversely affecting a wide range of NSW residents. Picture: NCA NewsWire/James Gourley

The RTBU has declared it will not drive foreign-made trains on Wednesday and Friday due to safety concerns over the Korean-built New Intercity Fleet.

Mr Perrottet said the constant timetable disruptions were putting the community in danger and starving struggling city businesses of customers.

It comes as the Premier launches a scathing rebuke of the waves of industrial action across the public sector that have caused mayhem in Sydney this year. Writing in today’s paper, Mr Perrottet said union-driven strikes by health workers, teachers and rail workers were political attacks designed to win Labor the 2023 state election.

“People are furious. They know these strikes aren’t about pay and conditions. They are premeditated and political,” he wrote.

“Earlier this year, in this very paper, the secretary of Unions NSW said so. He boasted 2022 would be the ‘year of the strike’.”

Mr Perrottet said he would meet with the RTBU this week to continue negotiations but said the unions were running a “concerted campaign” for the opposition.

Talks have broken down between the government and RTBU meaning more industrial action is on the way – unless the Premier has his way. Picture: David Swift

The Daily Telegraph front page on February 21, 2022 has became a reality with industrial action disrupting rail services last week.

“This is all politics. It’s not about principle, and it’s incredibly disappointing that the union bosses and the Labor Party are playing politics with the people of our state,” he said.

“(We offered) a 3 per cent pay increase for rail workers, bigger than all those Labor states. Plus a bonus payment.”

Mr Perrottet, who is a dad of seven, said the state’s “mums and dads, school kids, workers and businesses” bore the brunt of the strikes.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet, pictured at Epping Train Station with his daughter Amelia, 10. Picture: David Swift

RTBU NSW secretary Alex Claassens speaks to the media after meeting with TA Union to discuss industrial action. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Nikki Short

The latest impasse between the parties came on Thursday when the union rejected the government’s verbal offer to spend $264m to make changes to the New Intercity Fleet. RTBU boss Alex Claassens demanded a separate written agreement from the government to fix the safety concerns.

The sticking point – the ­inability for a guard to stick their head outside the control room to check the platform – was something the government had previously refused to budge on but it relented after last week’s industrial action.

NSW Labor has backed a string of industrial actions this year, but on Friday leader Chris Minns called for trains to resume services this week.

Mr Claassens said the union had been “burnt too many times” and needs “to see the whole package in writing”.

But Mr Perrottet said the separate document would open the government up to more industrial action.