‘Not a toy train set’: Transport minister says no level of industrial action tolerable on NYE

Sydney’s rail network will be strangled by escalating industrial action in the lead-up to New Year’s Eve, causing worsening delays and service cancellations, after the state government’s case to block work bans was thrown out by the Federal Court.

On Thursday afternoon, rail unions immediately reimposed a raft of bans ranging from members refusing to work with contractors to signallers not clearing the way for workers fixing non-urgent faults.

In a fresh bid to halt the actions, the government urgently lodged an application with Fair Work to suspend them on economic harm grounds or dangers to public safety. The industrial umpire will hear the case on Tuesday – a day before Christmas.

The Rail Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) has so far refrained from enacting a ban on members performing any work if trains do not run 24 hours on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Such action would result in a sudden shutdown of the system.

Less than 24 hours after meeting union leaders in high-stakes negotiations over a new pay deal, Transport Minister Jo Haylen said she would not tolerate industrial action on New Year’s Eve, and the government was “pursuing all legal avenues”, including the latest Fair Work application.

She described the scores of work bans as contradictory, adding that the rail network was “not a toy train set” and “you can’t just move it around with a click of your fingers”.

Despite speaking to RTBU secretary Toby Warnes, Sydney Trains chief executive Matt Longland said he was yet to be told which bans would be implemented.

“We haven’t yet been advised in detail around which bans will be reapplied. There’s more than 200 work bans in place.”

Earlier, Warnes said a number of actions would have a “significant impact” on the rail network, adding that Sydney Trains had two weeks to prepare for the possibility of the Federal Court throwing out the injunction case.

A union official later confirmed it had not enacted the ban on any work unless trains ran 24 hours. Another key ban involving a cumulative reduction in the number of kilometres train crew work each day would not begin until early next week if, indeed, the union decided to enact it.

The prospect of an escalation of various work bans raises the likelihood that service disruptions on New Year’s Eve – the busiest day of the year for the public transport system – will be worse than previously anticipated. More than a million people are expected to descend on the harbour front to watch fireworks.

Longland warned industrial action would have a “very significant impact” on the public in coming days and weeks.

With the two sides far apart on a wage deal, the fate of the rail network rests on the outcome of next Tuesday’s Fair Work hearing of the government’s application for the actions to be terminated or suspended.

Haylen said the industrial action had already cost taxpayers “significant amounts of money”, with forced cancellation of weekend trackwork alone costing millions of dollars.

Rail, Tram and Bus Union state secretary Toby Warnes.Credit: Brook Mitchell

“I want to be really honest with people – we are a long way apart,” she said. The treasurer and I met with rail union leaders late into [Wednesday] night. The government put very reasonable offers on the table.”

Sydney Metro also warned industrial action had affected the conversion of a 13-kilometre stretch of the Bankstown line to metro standards on more than 80 days since late September. “This has led to complex resequencing of the construction program,” the agency said.

In 2018, the Coalition government was successful in having Fair Work order rail unions to abandon a 24-hour strike and an overtime ban after the umpire ruled the actions threatened to endanger the population and cause economic harm.

However, in 2022, the Perrottet government failed to convince Fair Work to temporarily order a stop to industrial action on economic harm grounds.

Section 424 of 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 Australian economy or an important part of it”.

The government’s opening offer to rail workers comprised wage rises of 9.5 per cent over three years, as well as a further 0.5 per cent in the first if a deal was reached in a “timely manner”.

It is substantially lower than the RTBU and other unions’ demands for a 32 per cent pay rise over four years. About 60 per cent of Sydney Trains and NSW Trains’ 13,300 workers are RTBU members.

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