NSW train strike action hits rail network
New Daily.
Dec 14 2021

Commuters are again facing disruption and delays on the NSW rail network as train workers take industrial action.

Workers are refusing to staff foreign-made trains as part of failed enterprise agreement negotiations between the the Rail, Tram and Bus Union and NSW Trains.

The action is affecting all lines, with about 75 per cent of services out of action on the network.

The disruption comes after train workers launched similar industrial action last week.

Sydney Trains chief executive Matt Longland said commuters needed to plan ahead.

“Around two-thirds of our train fleet won’t be operating due to this action,” he told Sydney radio 2GB on Tuesday.

“Trains will be operating much less frequently across the network and they will be more crowded than usual.”

RTBU NSW secretary Alex Claassens hoped the state government would come to the bargaining table.

“It’s disappointing that another week has passed, and there’s still no indication [of] the NSW government stepping in and doing the right thing,” Mr Claassens said in a statement on Monday.

“The NSW government has been refusing to commit to providing workers and commuters with basic guarantees around hygiene, safety and privatisation for many months now.”

As part of the EBA negotiations, the union wants an end to privatisation, safety standards maintained and a commitment to retaining current hygiene levels while not relying on contractors to provide it.

“No one likes industrial action. But we can’t allow our basic safety, hygiene and privatisation asks to go ignored,” Mr Claassens said.

“We’re very aware of the impact this will have on commuters, but we also know that not taking action will leave workers and commuters at risk.”

NSW TrainLink chief executive Dale Merrick previously said Sydney Trains and NSW TrainLink officials had met unions for months and labelled the disruption as disappointing.

One day there'll be a story called 'Gladys' Children' dealing with the multiple failures in governance of her government, and she will be publicly pilloried as a 'weak leader' controlled by her party machine itself controlled by special interest group, to the savage cost of the general community.

Cracked trains and ferries are the tip of the transportberg about to hit her governance... industrial relations and privatisation costing the peons billions every year are the underwater part waiting to strike the S.S. Berejiklian.

OH?  So it costs someone living in Richmond a small fortune to travel to the city for work every year?  Well - if they were worth considering in the first place they would live in, say, Willoughby, or get a good job and a government car to carry them to work as well as pay the tolls for them... stupid peasants... they should have chosen a better residence and lifestyle and income earner...

Many of you are so blind when it comes to the utter self-deception and wilful, depraved blindness of your favourite politicians.

As for ScoMo - no wonder he's worried about a Federal ICAC with balls... watch out for the first appointee to the job(s)..... I like a triumvirate of REAL people, thanks... one drawn from the peasantry who suffer under these clowns with their privatisation and sell-off and globalisation...

Will he do a Howard and pull out a federal ICAC as a last-ditch election ploy, same as The Coward did when I got the ABC to front him over second class pensioners who didn't receive the Energy
Supplement etc.  That's one small notch for a man... one giant notch for mankind... he lost his seat then, too...

Against my better judgement, I'd suggest one chief advisor could be my cousin's hubby - a retired Commonwealth Deputy DPP.... though I'd have concern about him in a top spot... he's a good bureaucrat..... but he did progress through a system signally lacking in real integrity....