Train workers, their bosses and the NSW Government are all blaming each other for causing Sydney’s disastrous last-minute transport shutdown.
With spin and insults flying from all directions, the only certainty was that commuters were the ones who were suffering most from a bizarre dispute that boiled over into a disaster.
Hygiene, safety and network privatisation were among the many reasons given by the warring sides to explain the action, with some crude language also making an appearance.
Millions of Sydneysiders discovered on Monday morning they had no way of getting to work with just a 5am social media announcement from Sydney Trains.
The result was chaos with 22km traffic jams on the M2 Motorway and similar gridlock elsewhere as workers jumped in their cars all at once.
Transport for NSW secretary Rob Sharp sent an email at 1.38am suddenly cancelling all services in what rail workers called a ‘dummy spit’.
A snap rail strike caused numerous traffic problems across the Sydney road network with inner city areas hit particularly hard, as buses replaced trains and many people were delayed and confused. Pictured is Newtown in Sydney’s inner west
Mr Sharp and the NSW Government claimed they had no choice but to cancel all services as the union’s industrial action made the system unsafe – a claim the union strongly rejects.
But this was just the latest act in an extraordinary chain of events over the past year and beyond that came to a head over the weekend.
The union, transport authorities and the state government have been at each other’s throats for months over a new enterprise agreement, with 30 meetings in the past six months alone.
The union demanded better pay and conditions and improvements to hygiene, safety and no moves to privatise the network.
The city-wide shutdown stranded millions of commuters, forcing many to wait for overcrowded buses
Industrial action had been threatened for some time, and followed through on several occasions during the long-running negotiations.
The RTBU planned a ban for the next two weeks on overtime, ‘altered working’ and other flexible rostering that Sydney Trains uses to respond to changes on the network.
The two sides met for conciliation on Saturday with Sydney Trains and the government sending 10 lawyers at a $500,000 cost to taxpayers.
The government wanted all industrial action halted and was pushing for the Fair Work Commission to arbitrate the contract dispute.
Union bosses claim if the agreement was decided by the FWC it would side with the government and Sydney Trains because it was stacked with anti-union judges.
Back-to-back traffic crippled Victoria Road as train services were shut down on Monday
A graphic depiction of bumper to bumper traffic along Victoria Road and the M2, stationed trains at Clyde Train Depot, a shuttered Town Hall, and commuters left stranded in Parramatta
After hours of tense negotiation, the union agreed to cancel a ban on overtime and other plans in exchange for being able to go ahead with scaled-down industrial action on Monday for two weeks, and the government withdrawing its arbitration push.
However, the next day government realised it agreed to a deal that still has wide ranging, though comparatively minor, industrial action.
NSW Transport Minister David Elliott claimed on Monday this was because the union ‘deliberately misinterpreted’ the agreement.
The government sent Crown solicitors to the FWC to demand the industrial action be called off. Union leaders were not present but RTBU’s lawyers were.
The Fair Work Commission sided with the union and the industrial action was scheduled to go ahead.
Mr Elliot slammed this outcome and said he wasn’t there either because no one invited him.
‘What was agreed to on Saturday was in question, which was why last night at 8 o’clock we should have bedded down these questions… [but] they (the union) didn’t even bother showing up,’ he said.
‘The buck stops with me. I’m the transport minister, which is why I’m horrified that an agreement made on Saturday afternoon that could have been clarified last night, therefore avoiding the industrial action this morning, has occurred.’
Photos emerged of dozens of bored Sydney train workers left with nothing to do, milling about the train station and sitting in the depot after a city-wide shutdown
Other train workers were pictured on a desolate platform at Lithgow in Greater Sydney as millions of commuters battled to get to work and school on time on Monday
That was when Mr Sharp sent the 1.38am email to staff that announced Sydney Trains would be shutting down the network on Monday morning.
The former Virgin Australia boss claimed the industrial action the union planned for the next two weeks would compromise safety.
‘These impacts result in hundreds and thousands of customers being left stranded, unable to get to work, school and where they need to be,’ he wrote.
‘We are doing everything possible to minimise the impact on commuters and sincerely apologise to people inconvenienced by this industrial action.’
RTBU secretary Alex Claassens strongly disputed this, calling it a bulls**t excuse’ and ‘a new low’.
Mr Claassens said the ‘altered work ban’ the union planned to implement would only have caused delays if Sydney Trains failed to adapt to it.
‘Workers will be taking protected industrial action, but only transport management will notice the impact, not commuters,’ he said.
Town Hall has been barricaded as train services are crippled by widespread cancellations in Sydney
Men and women in orange high-vis vests sat around on their phones as negotiations continued before the Fair Work Commission on Monday morning (pictured)
‘If commuters see any impact to their services, it won’t be because of workers’ actions, but because the NSW Government is spitting the dummy and trying to make a point.’
Mr Claassens said union members, who showed up for work at 2am with no idea the rail network was shut down, would be at work ready to go as soon as management and the government let them.
‘All members will be at work, ready to work. They will be ready and waiting to crew the trains. There is no impediment, only stubbornness on behalf of the NSW Government,’ he said.
‘The actions being taken are designed to make life hard for transport management, not commuters.
‘There’s no strike – workers are simply performing the shifts we’re set without any changes.’
An empty Sydney train station pictured on Monday, February 21, 2022 on the day of a train strike
The rest of the morning was an all-in brawl between both sides, with Premier Dominic Perrottet, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the Labor opposition joining the fray.
Mr Elliott was not alone in his take no prisoners approach, with Mr Perrottet claiming, without evidence, that the strike was a ‘campaign by the unions and Labor to cause chaos across the city’.
‘The unions were intent on causing chaos,’ he said.
‘This is the unions playing games with the Labor Party for political purposes at the expense of our people.
‘This is the Labor Party in bed with the union movement to cause mass disruption.’
Mr Morrison said if Labor won the federal election, due by May 21, there would be a lot more strikes – which seemed to contradict Mr Perrottet’s view that Labor and the unions were in cahoots just to win the federal election.
Mr Claasens broke down at a Monday morning press conference as he revealed the union’s safety demand was a very personal matter.
‘Yesterday was also a very important day for me, because it was two years ago a friend of mine died in a train accident,’ he said.
Mr Claasens paused for a moment to hold back his tears and compose himself.
A sign (pictured) outside a Sydney train station saying transport staff want to work but the government shut the rail network down
There was traffic gridlock (pictured) across Sydney on Monday due to a train strike
‘For me to have to go through all this rubbish and stand here and justify why we’re taking protective industrial action, which we’re allowed to do legally under the law. We have done everything by the book.’
While one person’s spin is another person’s outright lies, both Mr Claasens and Mr Elliott used the same strong language to dismiss each other.
On Sydney radio station 2GB, host Ben Fordham put it to Mr Elliott that the strike was due to a decision taken by Transport for NSW, not the unions.
Mr Elliott didn’t hold back. ‘That’s bulls**t. That’s union spin,’ he said.
He Fordham he was ‘furious’ at the union trying to blame the government.
‘They cannot use the city’s transport system for some sort of terrorist-like activity,’ he said.
‘I have been negotiating with unions for 20 years and I haven’t seen this sort of behaviour for quite some time.’
NSW Minister for Transport David Elliott (pictured) accused unions of ‘terrorist-like activity’
Mr Elliott was not alone in his take no prisoners approach, with Mr Perrottet claiming, without evidence, that the strike was a ‘campaign by the unions and Labor to cause chaos across the city’.
The union, on the other hand, accused the NSW Government of using used anti-union laws to try to shut down its members’ right to take industrial action.
‘If the last few days have taught us anything, it’s that we have a government that is willing to try anything to screw us over, no matter what the cost to taxpayers,’ it said.
‘We need to, and we will, stand together to beat this heartless and morally bankrupt government. Our anger is palpable.’
Transport for NSW announced the sudden train closure at 5am on its social media, when some commuters were already heading to their local train stations.
‘Sydney Trains and NSW TrainLink intercity services are not running today due to industrial action,’ it wrote online.
‘Please avoid travel wherever possible, use alternative modes of transport and allow extra travel time on other modes of transport.’
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