This one union must not railroad the deal to end Sydney’s train chaos

A territorial brawl within the ranks of train unions is now threatening the resolution of their protracted and disruptive pursuit of a pay rise that has played havoc with Sydney’s train system and damaged the NSW economy for so many months that any lingering sympathy for their cause has evaporated and turned into anger.

The powerful Electrical Trades Union has baulked at signing an agreement that most believed would finally end the strikes and other actions that, since last September, have caused considerable anxiety for people who rely on rail services not just to get to work but to keep medical appointments. The union campaign not only threatened major events, including New Year’s Eve, but in some instances, saw passengers left on crowded platforms or in packed carriages for hours in the middle of summer with little regard for their personal safety or the dangers they faced.

Commuters waiting for services.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

Unions had been seeking a risible 32 per cent pay rise over four years and a 35-hour working week. The Minns government opened with a 9.5 per cent rise over three years before offering the Combined Rail Unions 12 per cent, plus back pay backdated to May 2024.

On Friday in the Fair Work Commission, the Rail, Tram and Bus Union agreed to the government’s offer. It was cheers all around, with the state government celebrating the in-principle agreement as a win, claiming it just needed to be voted on by union members.

Now the settlement of the damaging dispute is jeopardised by the inability of the unions to get their act together.

The ETU is reportedly threatening to block the deal, apparently unhappy with the way maintenance and engineering employees were categorised in the proposed agreement.

A recommendation from members of the Fair Work Commission, including president Justice Adam Hatcher, SC, described the issue as an “apparently insurmountable impediment to the parties reaching a successful outcome” in their bargaining. “We infer that the dispute issue has at its heart, at least in part, a demarcation dispute between the ETU and other unions which represent maintenance and engineering employees.”

The ETU and the state government will return to the commission on Monday to try to resolve the sticking point.

But after some eight months of industrial bastardry, commuters have had a gutful of being the collateral damage. The ETU’s callous disregard for the travelling public displays an astonishing inability to read the room.

The time for any doubt has passed. The ETU must end its holdout. Whatever the demarcation problems, they should be sorted with the RTBU so as not to visit further grief on long-suffering train travellers.

After that has been settled, the Minns government needs to inform us how it intends to compensate commuters for all the disruptions endured. While the rail unions have worn most of the ire, the government is not blameless in this months-long debacle. Its workplace policies, including scrapping the previous wages cap and giving pay rises to teachers and police, laid the track for these fantasy ambit claims.

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