Sydney rail commuters face disruption from fresh round of work bans

Rail unions are threatening a fresh round of industrial action on Sydney’s train network despite the state Labor government succeeding in blocking them in an eleventh-hour legal manoeuvre on Sunday, risking a repeat of commuter pain.

Less than a day after the government gained an injunction in the federal court, the Rail Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) and several other unions filed papers with the industrial umpire to seek the right to ballot members on a new round of industrial action.

Accusing the government of “adopting the Liberal Party playbook”, the RTBU will ask its 10,000 members who work on the state’s railways to vote on a raft of actions, including a ban on work if trains do not operate 24 hours a day from Thursdays to Sundays.

Premier Chris Minns speaks to reporters about the rail dispute on Monday.Credit: Edwina Pickles

The process is likely to take at least two weeks, meaning that disruption to trains from industrial action is likely to resume after Christmas if members vote in favour.

In another twist to the long-running dispute, the Labor government is suing the unions for contraventions of the Fair Work Act but has yet to seek damages or compensation.

The government sought an injunction in the federal court late on Sunday to block the RTBU and five other unions from resuming industrial action from Monday morning after both parties failed to reach a breakthrough despite a fortnight of intense negotiations over a new pay deal.

Premier Chris Minns said the legal action was “absolutely not an overreaction” because 40 per cent of rail services were disrupted on Friday and, even after the injection was imposed, some 30 per cent were affected on Monday.

About 30 per cent of trains on Sydney’s rail network ran late on Monday due to the flow-on effects of industrial action.Credit: Steven Siewert

“The government didn’t take this decision lightly. We sat around the table for two weeks trying to get an agreement with rail unions … but at the end of the day, the two sides were too far apart,” he said.

“We can’t just hand over a blank cheque, particularly when you consider that we’ve said no to nurses. The government, we believe, was forced to take emergency action in the federal court.”

Rail Tram and Bus Union state secretary Toby Warnes described the premier’s remarks about the two sides being too far apart as “absolute rubbish”, adding that they were in fact “within a whisker” of reaching an agreement on pay on Saturday night.

Warnes said the legal action had “extremely damaged” negotiations between the two sides, and was likely to result in the dispute lasting for months.

“We never saw anything as bad as what we saw over the weekend. Obviously, the new Labor government was in the wilderness for so long,” he said. “It is just adopting the Liberal Party’s playbook from the last 12 years of Coalition government.”

With NSW Labor and the unions further apart, an exclusive survey reveals only 18 per cent of voters think the government should refuse the demands of rail workers.

Instead, when asked for their preferred outcome to the unions’ push for an 8 per cent annual pay rise and a reduced 35-hour week, 46 per cent of voters said the Minns government should “negotiate a better deal” with workers.

The latest Resolve Political Monitor, conducted for this masthead by research company Resolve Strategic, found 15 per cent of voters believe the government should “agree to the unions’ demands in full” while 21 per cent were unsure.

The survey was conducted from December 4 to 8, the period in which the unions and the government were meeting daily in a bid to end the deadlock.

Despite the orders on Sunday blocking industrial action, commuters experienced service disruptions on Sydney’s rail network on Monday due to the flow-on effects from the rail operators preparing for industrial action. On Monday morning, 75 suburban trains were delayed and 18 cancelled.

Transport Minister Jo Haylen said the decision to seek an injunction was appropriate because it gave the government time to return train services to normal. “I’m sorry that we haven’t been able to reach an agreement. We do now have some certainty to protect passengers,” she said.

NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman said industrial chaos had been averted for now by the injunction but the matter had simply been “kicked down the road”.

“The union is threatening industrial action further down the track and months of negotiations. This is union greed at its worst – 32 per cent [pay rise over four years] and a 35-hour week is an outrageous claim. But the union has made this claim because they sense the weakness of this government.”

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