Rail Workers in NSW Will Abandon Opal Shutdown in the Face of Legal Action

Unionised rail workers have dumped plans to shut off Opal card readers as part of ongoing industrial action in New South Wales this week, after the government launched legal action with the Fair Work Commission. 

In an application to the Commission submitted over the weekend, Sydney Trains moved to have the watchdog rule that switching off Opal card readers would be illegal strike action and institute a gag order to stop unions organising their workers on Twitter.

The development emerges as the latest in a years-long “war” between the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) and the NSW government over a new pay deal, as well as a new fleet of Korean-built trains, which the union says is unsafe.

The back and forth between the government and its workers started about two years ago, but steadily escalated to frequent action in September last year. 

In a statement, the RTBU told VICE the government’s latest legal claim is “baseless” and comes as part of an effort to distract from a refusal to deliver “safe trains” and fair wages. 

“The government has engaged in sneaky tactics to stop protected industrial action from going ahead next Wednesday, which would have seen commuters travel the rail network for free,” the union said. 

“Rather than sitting down and trying to negotiate with the union on delivering safe trains and fair wages and conditions for workers, the government is determined to drag the issue out for as long as possible.”

By turning off the rail network’s ticket machines, the union hoped to turn the screw on similar strike action taken last month, when workers left turnstiles open at most stations across the network, with the same intentions. However, reports following the action showed that the majority of Sydney commuters were still tapping on and off at Opal gates, regardless of whether they were left open.

If this week’s proposed action were to have gone ahead, the Opal shutdown would have cost the Sydney Trains network millions of dollars. 

At the end of last month, NSW premier Dominic Perrottet took a cut-throat approach to negotiations and tabled a “final” pay offer, still shy of what workers were asking for. 

“It ends today,” he said, insisting that unions were engaging in a style of aggressive collective bargaining “that belongs back in the 1970s”. (A period of action that gave passage to 12 months unpaid maternity leave.) 

If the majority of the rail network’s 13,000 workers voted against the offer, Perrottet threatened to terminate the rail union’s current pay deal and take back a $1 billion compromise to modify the Korean-built train fleet and get it on the tracks.

Newspapers characterised the approach as a declaration of war, and the state government has shown few signs of easing up. 

The newest pay deal included pay rises of 3 percent in the first year, and a 3.5 percent bump the year after—in step with its wage policy across the public sector—along with a promise to modify Sydney’s new intercity fleet.

Shortly after the government issued its ultimatum, Unions NSW deputy secretary Thomas Costa said the move would likely only vindicate similar frustrations being felt across the public sector. 

“I think every union and every public sector worker is watching this very closely and developing their own strategy,” Costa said.

Perrottet and his cabinet are taking note.

On Sunday, Perrottet and his transport minister, David Elliott, were seen having lunch with infamous union-buster Chris Corrigan—who laid off 1,400 of his employees in one swoop during the 1998 Waterfront Dispute—and former prime minister, John Howard, who in 2005 introduced industrial relations laws that made it easier for bosses to fire workers, and made it harder to strike. 

According to one report, Howard warned Perrottet not to meet the union’s wage demands, for fears doing so could prompt workers from across the public sector to follow suit.

The meeting itself symbolises a fierce escalation, after Elliott released a staunch statement late last week warning the state’s rail workers that they’d run the risk of being “charged, prosecuted and sacked”. 

Only days earlier, he’d called the industrial action “economic sabotage”.

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