In the early hours of Monday morning the NSW government shut down its own rail network, cancelling all services. Members of the Liberal Party quickly took to the airwaves to howl about a railway “strike” in a series of calculated public hysterics. NSW Transport minister David Elliott accused the rail union, the RTBU, of hijacking the city. “They cannot use the city’s transport system for some sort of terrorist-like activity”, he thundered.
It started with an old union song, “Solidarity forever”, blasting away in the Central Station sign-on room. Train drivers and guards started to congregate, wearing blue Rail Tram and Bus Union shirts emblazoned with “union and proud”. When a shift manager walked into the room, the song changed abruptly to “Who Let the Dogs Out” as workers burst out laughing.
Chasing a pay rise and better safety, and to defend working conditions, NSW railway workers held a four-hour strike on 28 September, bringing the state’s passenger rail system to a halt. It was part of a Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) campaign against the state Liberal government’s austerity agenda.
Railway workers have overwhelmingly rejected a NSW government effort to use the pandemic as an opportunity to attack public sector wages. Attempting to prevent industrial action, the bosses of Sydney Trains and NSW Trainlink called for a vote to extend the existing workplace agreement by six months with a pitiful 0.3 percent pay rise. Railway workers rejected proposal in a landslide—87 percent voting against it in Sydney Trains and 89 percent voting against it in NSW Trainlink.
The Rail, Tram and Bus Union in Victoria has beaten an attempt by Metro Trains to quash a protected action ballot order at the Fair Work Commission.
In a move described as “a blatant and obvious attack on the union movement” by the rail union, Metro Trains Sydney in March sacked a union delegate on its new driverless train project. The delegate had been in the process of petitioning for union recognition and a better agreement.