Sydney commuters have been told to avoid rail travel and instead book taxis or rideshares, as the state government warned a “sneak strike” that led to a quarter of all morning trains being cancelled would result in worse evening disruptions.
Negotiations over a new pay deal between the New South Wales government and rail unions broke down again on Thursday night before the state’s treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, blasted the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) on Friday over its demand for a $4,500 bonus payment.
The government said the bonus – the final hurdle in the pay deal – would cost the state $60m.
More than 90% of morning peak services were either cancelled or delayed. By 1:30pm on Friday, more than 800 services had been cancelled across all lines, with the T2 Leppington and Inner West and T8 Airport and South lines hardest hit. There were cascading delays across the network, with 396 not running to time.
By 2pm, when a key roster period began, 576 train drivers and guards hadn’t turned up to work – including a “big uptick” in sick leave at rates not seen since the height of Covid.
Disruptions were likely to worsen throughout the afternoon and evening, he said, while urging staff rostered on from 2pm to turn up for work.
Matt Longland, the chief executive of Sydney Trains, said buses were shuttling travellers from Central station to the airport but he suggested, as an alternative, catching the Metro to Sydenham and then taking a taxi or Uber. The Metro is operated separately and was unaffected by industrial action.
An cap on Uber surge pricing will continue to be in place on Friday afternoon, while parents of school children who return home by train have been told to organise alternative pickups.
In response to the government refusing the one-off bonus – which had not been aired by the government or unions in nine months of negotiations but which the RTBU assumed would carry over from a previous agreement – the union ramped up work stoppages which had already been planned for Friday.
Mookhey said the union was “gaslighting Sydney” and the suggestion the government had issued a staff lockout was false.
“I’m so sorry that Sydney has woken up to a sneak strike in support of a wild claim. This turn of events could easily have been avoided had the union engaged in good faith negotiations,” he said.
“I have seen some of the communications from the union. I do want to say that I think the union is gaslighting Sydney. What they’re saying to the public, what they’re saying to the government and what they’re saying to the courts is clearly very different to what they’re saying to their own members.”
The 2023 bonus was included as a one-off payment to cover missed back pay, the government said.
The acting transport minister, John Graham, said the government would lodge applications with the Fair Work Commission on Friday afternoon to attempt to quash any action before both parties were due to return to the commission for negotiations on Monday.
At the centre of the latest disagreement is a demand for a $4,500 bonus payment for every rail worker – a sweetener that rail unions secured when negotiating its last pay deal with the previous Coalition government.
A NSW government spokesperson said the unions had requested the bonus “at the last hour” of extensive negotiations on Thursday night. Mookhey said the unions had not raised continuing the payment once in their log of claims during months of negotiations.
“After extensive negotiations over the last few days the unions at the last hour asked for a $4,500 bonus payment for every rail worker. This was never part of our offer, nor was it in the union’s counteroffer,” the spokesperson said on Friday morning.
“As a result, the union has instructed drivers not to show up to work today.”
But Toby Warnes, the secretary of the RTBU, called that claim “completely untrue”.
Warnes said the bonus payment was “an existing entitlement contained within the last enterprise agreement” struck with the previous Coalition government – and “nothing new at all”.
“Claims from the NSW government that rail workers threw an extra payment into the mix are completely untrue.”
The RTBU claimed the NSW government had not raised the bonus payment or attempted to remove it from the new deal during months of negotiations.
The government, however, insisted the bonus payment in the previous 2023 agreement was a one-off initiative – and not automatically continued into the next deal.
Former coalition transport minister David Elliott, who was minister when the bonus was negotiated, confirmed the government’s understanding, telling 2GB radio on Friday the payment was a one-off for back pay.
Warnes on Friday defended leaked communications reportedly from an RTBU convener on Thursday night telling members “let’s fuck the network up”.
The union chief said he didn’t authorise the message or tell workers not to go to work. Warnes said members were frustrated. “You’ve got a government that’s treated [them] very poorly for the past five months,” he said.
The RTBU warned on Thursday night that trains would run 23km/hr slower than usual in areas where the speed limit was over 80km/hr, as part of protected industrial action.
Warnes told a press conference on Friday morning that delays across the network were “entirely attributable to the government issuing, last Friday, 5,000 individual lockout notices to train crew workers” across the state.
The notices were intended to take effect Wednesday, he said, and postponed by the government at midnight in efforts to reach an agreement – then took effect again overnight on Thursday “after negotiations fell over”.
“So we have workers who are either showing up today and risking not getting paid by the government, or we have workers who have chosen not to attend work today because of those lockout notices,” Warnes said.
“No one can predict the level of disruption that this is going to cause.”
The claims about a “lockout” were disputed, with the government understood to be encouraging employees to turn up to work on Friday to minimise the disruptions.
The NSW government spokesperson said “we have a fair and reasonable pay offer on the table”.
“We can’t say yes to rail unions and no to nurses.”
They said the government was looking at “all our options including urgent legal action”.
Friday’s actions were the latest wave of disruptions in what has been a nine-month period in which combined rail unions and the state government have failed to agree on a new pay deal. The government has repeatedly sought to quash various work stoppages through legal interventions.
The unions’ initial demands were for a 32% pay rise over four years. The government’s most recent offer was 15% over four years – a base 13% figure plus a 1% rise from efficiency gains and 1% in superannuation.
Talks on the new enterprise agreement continue ahead of the next Fair Work Commission hearing on Monday, Transport for NSW said in a media release.
They said on Thursday that train union member drivers might operate trains at reduced speeds “however a normal train timetable will continue to operate”.
“While we expect minimal disruption, the consequences of industrial action can be unpredictable.”
– with Australian Associated Press
