As Sydneysiders brace for yet another day of disruptions on the train network on Wednesday, the heads of the state’s rail unions will be locked away with the New South Wales transport minister, David Elliott, in a bid to finally end a months-long industrial standoff.
The meeting – held amid another round of industrial action by the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) – marks the latest flashpoint in a protracted battle between a government beset by industrial strife and a union movement increasingly determined to flex its muscle.
Based on the war of words playing out publicly between the two sides, there appeared to be scant hope for a speedy resolution.
The 24-hour action on Wednesday will cause major disruption to services. Most timetables will be reduced to a 30-minute frequency, however no services will run on the T5 Cumberland and T7 Olympic Park line.
Buses will not be a reliable alternative for commuters in Sydney’s inner west, with workers on strike there too, and stop-work meetings scheduled from 4am to 7am and 2.30pm to 5.30pm.
It will affect bus services run under contract by Transit Systems in the inner west, parts of the CBD, Olympic Park, Strathfield and Rockdale.
On Tuesday the head of the RTBU, Alex Claassens, accused the government of engaging in “stunts” and revealed the union is seeking an extra 0.5% pay rise over the government’s controversial wages cap.
In a letter to the government on Monday night, the combined rail unions said industrial action would be halted until the end of September if the pay claim – and new terms on a commitment to make changes to the new intercity fleet of trains – was agreed to.
But Claassens said if they were unable to hammer out a deal, it may not be long before the union takes action again.
“Certainly the mood of the [union] delegates yesterday was enough to say to me that if we don’t get a resolution this week, the two weeks of peace you will potentially get anyway because we have to give 10 days that notice will disappear very quickly,” he said.
On both sides of the debate, there is concern that public sentiment is turning against them. Faced by industrial unrest across several sectors – including the separate bus strike – the government has been desperate to end the standoff well ahead of the March election.
The premier, Dominic Perrottet, seemed to concede as much during a press conference on Tuesday.
Coalition MPs – including the deputy leader and treasurer, Matt Kean – had sought to link the strikes to Labor due to Claassens’ position on the party’s powerful administrative committee. But on Tuesday Perrottet made reference to the calls by the opposition leader, Chris Minns, for the strikes to end.
“There’s a unity ticket here,” Perrottet said.
The unions are aware that, for commuters, memories of the government’s bungled shutdown of the rail network in February have faded away, amid frustration over the prolonged industrial campaign.
During his press conference, Claassens acknowledged he had become “public enemy number one”.
“Everybody’s blaming me for everything that’s going on out there,” he said.
Certainly, Perrottet was happy to blame the union, saying Wednesday’s disruption was “politically motivated”.
“It’s been ongoing now for a substantial period of time,” he said.
“Every time that we have made concessions to fix that issue, the union has come out and said ‘no no, we’ll move on to something else.’”
The government has made a series of concessions, including over the intercity train fleet at the centre of the dispute.
The $2bn fleet has been mothballed for two years because the union has refused to operate it without changes they say are necessary to make them safe.
After Kean earlier ruled out making the changes, the government later backed down and agreed to spend $260m on the alterations.
Since then, the dispute has centred on the wording of a deed committing to those changes. The government had wanted the alterations to be contingent on the finalisation of negotiations over a separate enterprise agreement.
But this week the industrial relations minister, Damien Tudehope, offered to scrap the requirement. He agreed to push ahead with the changes if the combined rail unions stopped the rolling industrial action before a new enterprise agreement was approved by the Fair Work commission.
The union has again balked at the conditions. In the letter to the government on Monday night, the unions said the offer “lacks clarity and is incapable of acceptance”. They said the government had not yet shown them the new deed.
Claassens said he was hopeful a deal could be reached by the end of the week.
“We’ve now drawn a line in the sand – the delegates have had enough,” he said. “We are just totally frustrated by this government inaction.
“[The government has] an opportunity to come to the table this week. We’ve put a position to them. [Tudehope] has got 24 hours in which to respond to that.”
with AAP
