The rail strike planned for Sydney on January 29 is set to go ahead, despite a 14-hour meeting between transport bosses and Rail, Tram and Bus Union representatives on Monday.
RTBU NSW secretary Alex Claassens told 2GB Radio on Tuesday morning sides had met in Sydney from 9am to close to 11pm on Monday, January 22, to negotiate a four-year enterprise agreement to cover Sydney Trains and NSW TrainLink drivers.
In what Claassens referred to as a “little bit better offer,” the State Government has reportedly upped its pay increase offering to 3% per annum – higher than the 2.5% that was on the table, but still a long way behind the 6% the union is asking for.
Constance told Seven on Tuesday the Government’s latest offer was “a good package”. More meetings are planned for Tuesday afternoon.
But the union will – at this stage – still go ahead with its strikes, which will take place all day next Monday – the first day back from the Australia Day long weekend.
“Unfortunately, I’ve got to report to the public there will be an overtime ban on Thursday, there will be a strike on Monday, unless they come to the table [on Tuesday] and actually start talking about the conditions that matter for my members,” Claassens told host Steve Price.
The union boss said transport minister Andrew Constance didn’t attend Monday’s meeting.
“The decisions this minister makes sometimes beggar belief,” Claassens said. “But look, at the end of the day, I’m not sure that it would have made much difference having him there. He’s effectively directing what’s going on anyway.
“We’re just frustrated. [Constance] keeps trying to drag us into this spot, saying it’s all about money. And while I’m not going to deny that money is important, our issues are all about the fact that we’ve had a chaotic train system.
“We’ve seen what happened when we introduced a timetable that we weren’t prepared for. We were inadequately resourced to be able to do it. And we’ve been continually done over when we want to have our days off.
“This is more about our conditions than it is about money.
“Him sitting at the table saying, ‘you guys are outrageous because you’re asking for 6%’ is not going to help the negotiations, in fact, it’ll probably derail it, if you’ll pardon the pun.”
Quoted by AAP on Tuesday, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the Government was prepared to take legal action if the strike cannot be averted through negotiations.
“We do have legal recourse and we will be taking that action but of course our preference is that negotiations end in a positive way and that the strike action be averted,” she was quoted as saying.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull also weighed in on the matter, slamming the union for “standing over the Government or the transport authorities” with the threat to strike. “The only people that will suffer are the commuters and they should be put first,” the PM said in Brisbane.