Image: Image: Sydney Metro
By Will Thorpe
Sydney Trains employees are poised to take significant industrial action from September 18 in opposition to the upcoming conversion of the Bankstown line between Sydenham and Bankstown into a Metro line and as part of ongoing bargaining over pay.
The Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) announced on Tuesday that upcoming actions would aim to “get the Government to pay our bargain the attention it deserves as well as forcing a genuine conversation about the Bankstown conversion,” referring to the driverless Metro as “a distracting shiny new toy.”
“At the core of these actions is ensuring that trains continue to run on the Bankstown Line and it is not closed as planned to deliver the Metro conversion,” a notice to members remarked. The Metro is “the fad of the month,” it continued, saying that the conversion is a “different beast” to the recently opened city extension.
‘An Affront To Railway Employees’
The notice lashed the Metro conversion as unjustified, reckless, and endangering – and an affront to railway employees.
“This is simply an attack on working people using billions of taxpayer dollars to do so. Automation for the sake of automation. It’s easier to bargain with machines than unionised workers.” Metro staff are able to join the RTBU.
After midnight on September 18, union members will work only the existing timetable, as opposed to a new timetable slated for introduction after the closure which has been set to increase services on other lines. Work on the entire length of the Bankstown line will be prohibited if the partial closure for conversion goes ahead, and clearing signals on the line will also be forbidden.
Union members will not abide by schedule cancellations or accept alternate work unless the government reduces fares to fifty cents per trip, this action commencing at 1 am.
A raft of more particular measures are also to kick in, including prohibitions on infrastructure workers doing work in temperatures above thirty degrees, removal of dead animals, and training for new trainees at the main signalling centre in Sydney, alongside five other stipulations.
The planned measures hark back to rail union actions taken in the last years of the Liberal–National government and are collectively the most significant action announced thus far under the Minns government.
Impact On Commuters
Transport minister Jo Haylen stated that the government was assessing the potential impact on commuters, chiding the union. “The benefits of metro should not be reserved for the communities north of the Sydney Harbour Bridge,” Haylen, the member for Summer Hill, remarked. Transport for NSW also stated that it was assessing the scale of the disruption and would update passengers of any possible service disruption.
Opposition leader Mark Speakman attacked both the union and the government. “This isn’t about improving conditions – it’s about union power, and Premier Minns is too weak and beholden to the unions to take control,” he declared.
It is planned that free travel will be provided on train replacement buses, which will take considerably longer than the rail service they replace, during the closure. The closure is slated to begin on 21 September and in full from the 30th, with closed stations reopening on the metro line in late 2025. Planned service modifications to coincide with the closure are to require some commuters west of Bankstown to change trains at Lidcombe to get to the city centre.
The metro conversion is set to increase service frequency and bring some reduction in travel times, whilst suburban trains are to be reallocated to other lines.
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