Ceasefire in rail pay dispute saves Sydney’s New Year’s Eve

A temporary ceasefire in the bitter pay dispute between the state Labor government and unions which threatened train services for Sydney’s New Year’s Eve fireworks has been brokered at the eleventh hour after rail unions dropped scores of work bans.

Just an hour after a Fair Work hearing started on Tuesday, rail unions dropped up to 100 work bans, resulting in the government withdrawing its bid seeking the umpire’s intervention to suspend or terminate industrial action.

The action had threatened to limit services on New Year’s Eve, putting the city’s annual harbour-front party at risk over fears for crowd safety.

Transport Minister Jo Haylen said the unions’ formal assurance to drop work bans gave train passengers and businesses confidence to plan holidays and events. “New Year’s Eve train services will run as planned. Families can come to the city with confidence,” she said.

Haylen said the unions’ undertaking included not disrupting services to the Sydney Test cricket match, which begins on January 3 at the SCG.

“Christmas, New Year’s Eve and the Sydney Test are too important to the state, and they are now safe as the union has withdrawn their industrial action,” she said.

Transport Minister Jo Haylen said on Tuesday that families can travel on New Year’s Eve with confidence. Credit: Janie Barrett

However, Tuesday’s outcome does not resolve the protracted pay dispute, which has become increasingly hostile as the state Labor government and its traditional allies in the union movement escalated attacks on one another.

The unions are seeking a 32 per cent pay rise over four years, which is significantly higher than the government’s opening offer of wage rises of 9.5 per cent over three years.

Lawyer Leo Saunders, who represented the combined rail unions, told the Fair Work hearing that they had committed to no new industrial action that posed a threat to train services on New Year’s Eve, while the Electrical Trades Union had agreed to withdraw a series of bans.

Late on Monday night, the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) agreed to withdraw major bans, including limits on the distance train crews can travel, alongside several other actions that would no longer come into effect on December 28 as planned.

Rail Tram and Bus Union state secretary Toby Warnes and other union officials leave the Fair Work hearing on Tuesday. Credit: Janie Barrett

Following the hearing, RTBU state secretary Toby Warnes said the government should return to the bargaining table on Boxing Day and “stop talking to your lawyers”.

Warnes said the union had withdrawn some bans to give the public more certainty about transport services but insisted there were “never going to be” any major disruptions on New Year’s Eve.

“The government and the big business community withdrew its case before the Fair Work Commission,” he told reporters after the hearing.

However, Transport for NSW secretary Josh Murray said enormous amounts of evidence had been assembled to support the need for operational certainty on the rail network, and the outcome from the Fair Work hearing was a “strong and very important result”.

Hotel boss Craig Laundy, a former federal Liberal MP, said the unions’ withdrawal of the work bans gave businesses certainty that trains would operate on New Year’s Eve. “Disappointed we have to be here in the first place at all, but it looks like New Year’s Eve will happen as it has traditionally,” he said. “Thankfully, sanity prevailed.”

Opposition Leader Mark Speakman said New Year’s Eve might be marked safe, but the rail dispute was far from resolved and commuters were likely to face further disruption in the weeks and months ahead. “This is just another rinse-and-repeat mess from Chris Minns – chaos kicked down the road,” he said.

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