War of attrition: rolling strikes a deadly political weapon against the government
The threat to tear up rail workers’ wage agreement could be the calculated move to allow the Premier to win the battle to keep Sydney’s trains on the right track, writes James O’Doherty.
Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
When Dominic Perrottet threatened to tear up the rail union’s wage agreement last week, the backdrop was no coincidence.
The Premier, with his Transport Minister David Elliott and Finance Minister Damien Tudehope, were deep underground in Martin Place, laying the final piece of track for the city and southwest Metro.
The project, like thousands of commuters across Sydney, has been the victim of the rail union’s rolling industrial action, ostensibly designed to improve safety of the train network.
As we now know from an internal email exposed by The Daily Telegraph, the Premier’s offensive angered the union so effectively that it revealed its hand.
In the campaign update sent to members, the Rail, Tram and Bus Union vowed to “fight this government with everything we’ve got”.
“This government does not deserve a moment of peace between now and the next election,” the email declared.
Perrottet and his team have been trying for weeks to tie Labor to the strikes causing chaos for commuters.
The Premier now has his smoking gun.
It was, as Treasurer Matt Kean told me on Monday, “the true union movement unmasked, bragging about its political agenda”.
Rolling strikes are seemingly being used as a deadly political weapon in a war of attrition against the government.
More than seven months ago, Unions NSW boss Mark Morey warned that 2022 would be the year of the strike unless the government caved in and met demands for higher wages.
That threat could not have been more accurate.
The internal emails show in no uncertain terms that the RTBU has no intention of backing down.
In one campaign update, the RTBU vowed to fight “smart” and “long” against the government.
“Every time they take us on, we win. And we will again,” it said.
Making matters worse for commuters, more strikes could be on the cards if the union does not get the outcome it wants at a crucial Fair Work Commission meeting now postponed until Friday.
The email was “issued and authorised” by RTBU NSW secretary Alex Claassensm who, as this column has previously highlighted, serves on Labor’s powerful Administrative Committee, responsible for running the party.
There is no doubt that Perrottet has been politically damaged by the rail strikes, particularly among commuters who believe that as Premier, he is ultimately responsible for keeping the trains running on time.
Failing a full concession to the rail union, which could lead to a cascading campaign of public sector strikes across the workforce, the government’s best defence is offence.
That is why senior ministers have been so quick to go on the attack. The Premier’s office has even explicitly tasked backbencher Chris Rath with keeping the heat on the union.
Writing in this newspaper last week, Rath noted that the RTBU paid more than $95,000 to Labor just last year.
“Under Claassen’s leadership, last year the RTBU gave $78,612 to NSW Labor in four separate ‘subscription’ payments. This figure was supplemented by an additional $17,112 in ‘electoral expenditure’, which were funds used for targeted campaigns messaging against the NSW Government,” Rath said.
Claassens denies that his union is campaigning against the Perrottet government, insisting that he would be doing the same thing if Labor was in power.
“I don’t care whether it’s a Liberal government in power or a bloody Labor government in power. I’ve had the same fights with the Labor government and I would do it again in a heartbeat,” he told me on Monday.
But tellingly, when asked whether the campaign update gave the impression that the union is “campaigning against the government,” Claassens said: “we’re not doing that yet”.
Note the word “yet”.
Make no mistake, come election time, the RTBU will be one of many unions who will be registered as official “third party campaigners” trying to get Chris Minns elected.
Minns has long been walking a tightrope when it comes to the trade union movement.
He used his first speech to argue for union influence in the Labor Party to be reduced and has gone so far as urging the RTBU to call off network-wide strikes.
But he now appears to be calling for the government to give the union what it wants when it comes to a pay rise,
He told Sky News this week that the difference in the two sides is just “$5 million or $6 million”.
“I think (the government) should be honest with the NSW taxpayers about what’s at stake,” he said.
If rail strikes were just about the safety of the mothballed New Intercity Fleet, this sorry saga would have been over long ago.
The longer it continues, the more damaging it threatens to be for the government, unless it is successful in convincing voters that they were repeatedly late to work because union members wanted Labor to win the next election.
Voters will be given the chance to vent their frustrations over recent strikes at the ballot box in March.
Both major parties are desperately trying to ensure the other mob gets the blame.
A year since October 7, what has happened to Australia?
As protests around the world mark a year since the October 7 attack on Israel, US correspondent Tom Minear says he does not recognise how Australia has changed since then.
Are you sabotaging your child’s future?
With so many students becoming more anxious, distracted and sleep-deprived, this neuroscience expert is proposing parents implement these measures now, before it is too late.