Rail workers given ultimatum to drop demands for 24-hour services

The NSW government is demanding the main rail union remove a work ban that requires 24-hour train services and another that reduces staff availability, raising the risk of severe disruptions or a shutdown of Sydney’s passenger rail network.

After running trains around the clock for three days last week, Sydney Trains formally wrote to the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) to ask that the two bans be lifted, giving its leadership until 5pm on Monday to respond.

Trains ran 24 hours a day on Sydney’s suburban rail network on Thursday, Friday and Saturday last week.Credit: Kate Geraghty

However, the union decided late on Monday against lifting the bans, telling the operator that concerns about industrial action disrupting maintenance could be overcome by removing a rail line that needed urgent work from its demands for 24-hour services.

Transport Minister Jo Haylen said on Monday it was unsustainable to keep running trains 24 hours a day, as well as operate the network with a ban that gradually reduces staff availability.

“It is putting incredible strain on the operation of our network, and it is not allowing us to do critical maintenance,” she said.

“[The bans] are like a boa constrictor, strangling the life out of our network. They make it harder and harder to operate.”

Asked whether commuters should brace for a potential shutdown this week, Haylen said she hoped the union would lift the bans and work towards reaching an agreement on a new pay deal by the end of the year.

“Government is considering all of its options,” she said.

In an escalation of the protracted dispute, an indefinite ban on work by RTBU members unless trains operate 24 hours a day on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays came into effect last week.

The RTBU, which has about 10,000 members at Sydney Trains and NSW Trains, also has a ban in place that results in a gradual reduction in kilometres that crews work on suburban trains.

The government estimates that the demands to run trains around the clock will cost taxpayers an extra $1.5 million a week. Sydney Trains put on an extra 180 train services a night from Thursday to Saturday, which forced cancellation of planned track maintenance on the City Circle and T8 Airport rail lines last weekend.

Complicating matters, the M1 metro rail line between Chatswood and Sydenham via the central city will be closed to passengers this weekend for major maintenance, forcing passengers onto double-deck trains.

The government has offered rail workers wage rises of 3.5 per cent in the first year, 3 per cent in the second and 3 per cent in the third. They would also receive one-off payments of $1000 for each year and super increases this year and next.

The offer falls well short of a 32 per cent pay rise over four years that the RTBU and five other unions have sought. The two sides have been in negotiations over a new pay deal for the past six months.

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