Passenger Rail, Workforce, Certification & Training

Union votes for strikes as Sydney Trains cancels services

Union members have voted for the right to strike as part of enterprise agreement negotiations with the State Government, as Sydney Trains was forced to 38 Monday services amid staff shortages.

Sydney Trains and Transport for NSW have been asked to deliver a report to NSW transport minister Andrew Constance within a fortnight, after Sydney commuters were hit with extensive delays on Monday and Tuesday last week.

Constance last week told the media several lightning strikes had worsened a tight situation, with Sydney Trains already dealing with an unusually high number of staff on sick leave.

Sydney Trains said on Monday morning it had cancelled a 38 of the less busy services for the morning peak, to make up for ongoing staff shortages.

Both Sydney Trains and NSW Trains are negotiating with the Rail, Tram and Bus Union on a new enterprise agreement, with the sides differing significantly on a fair pay rise percentage.

The union reportedly wants a 6% per annum rise written into the new deal, but the operator is offering 2.5%.

Last week RTBU members were asked to give the union permission to call strikes as part of the negotiation, and the results, released late on Friday, showed over 90% of voting workers would allow strikes up to 3 days, and over 73% would allow strikes of a week, or an ‘indefinite’ period.

RTBU NSW secretary Alex Claassens said it was “unfortunate” that workers were “forced” to vote for strikes.

“What this means is that the option to take various forms of protected industrial actions,” Claassens said, “but we are still very hopeful we won’t have to go down that path.”

Claassens said Constance would “no doubt” try to make workers look “greedy,” “he always does”. But the union boss said the union just wanted to ensure workers’ basic workplace conditions, and fair wage increases, were secured.

“We know our transport minister has his sights set on privatising more and more of our transport services, and workers are rightly worried about what that will mean for their jobs,” he said.

“After years of putting up with job cuts, service cuts and now the active threat of the privatisation of transport services and the unworkable new timetable, all workers want is a bit of certainty and an assurance that their basic wages and conditions will be protected.”