NSW government rolls court dice as union cleared for NYE industrial action

The NSW government will take the rail union to the FWC on the same day the Federal Court lifted a ban, giving the RTBU a green light to resume industrial action.

Commuters at Sydney’s Central Station could face railway chaos on New Year’s Eve. Picture: Gaye Gerard

The NSW government will take the state’s rail union to the Fair Work Commission on the same day the Federal Court lifted its previous ban, which had given the union the green light to resume industrial action ahead of looming New Year’s Eve network chaos.

In what has turned into a protracted fiasco for the government, Transport Minister Jo Haylen on Thursday said it would lodge a section 424 at the commission to block rail strikes on New Year’s Eve – the busiest day on the network – on community safety and economic grounds.

“We see every year over a million people line our foreshore (on New Year’s Eve),” she said.

“The network carries more than a million people – more than 3000 services are required over a 48-hour period, including a four-minute peak frequency over the Harbour Bridge to move people in and out of the city.

“That’s the level of service that’s required for New Year’s Eve … We’re talking about a global event, and people look forward to it and businesses need (that), and that’s why we’re taking legal action.”

Negotiations with the Rail Tram and Bus Union have proved politically and financially costly for the Labor state government, which has so far refused to cave to a demand for a 32 per cent pay rise across four years.

Transport Minister Jo Haylen at Martin Place station on Thursday. Picture: John Appleyard

“I want to be really honest with people – we are a long way apart,’ Ms Haylen said.

She and Treasurer Daniel Mookhey met with union leaders on Wednesday night, but on Thursday morning, Sydney’s Federal Court threw out the government’s injunction stopping the RTBU from taking industrial action, clearing it to impose a raft of work bans “immediately”.

One of the rail union’s actions is a ban on members performing any work unless trains run 24 hours on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, but it is unclear whether it will be enforced this week.

Sydney Trains chief executive Matt Longland said he had yet to be told by the unions which bans they would implement and RTBU NSW secretary Toby Warnes obfuscated on the issue on Thursday.

“We haven’t yet been advised in detail around which bans will be reapplied,” Mr Longland said, adding there were more than 200.

Rail Tram and Bus Union NSW secretary Toby Warnes. Picture: John Appleyard

Mr Warnes said the state government’s case “was always based on weak legal grounds” and the union would tell its members to “immediately start enforcing industrial action again”.

“RTBU members will do whatever it takes to achieve what they deserve, and that will continue indefinitely, at this weekend, and then the reduction in kilometre ban coming from Monday,” he said

Mr Warnes rejected accu­sations the union was “holding the city to ransom”. He said the union was meeting on Friday to discuss whether it would continue to fund the Labor Party or whether it might split, saying “members have sent us a signal and they’re not happy”.

In 2018, the Coalition was successful in having the FWC order unions to abandon a 24-hour strike and overtime ban but the Perrottet government in 2022 failed at the commission to stop different industrial action on economic harm grounds.

Under section 424, the Fair Work Act allows for the suspension of termination of protection industrial action under two main conditions: “to endanger the life, the personal safety or health, or the welfare, of the population or of part of it” and “to cause significant damage to the economy or an important part of it”.

The government has so far offered the RTBU a 9.5 per cent rise over three years, and an extra 0.5 per cent in the first if a deal is reached expeditiously.