TRANSPORT customers in NSW have been urged to "find alternate" travel arrangements leading up to Monday night's industrial action.
Rail Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) members will undertake an eight hour stoppage from 8pm Monday to 4am Tuesday. Trainlink have warned the strikes will affect passenger and freight services across the state in what is their "busiest week of the year".
NSW TrainLink Chief Executive Dale Merrick has called on the union to stop the action.
"This is significant disruption that means many regional and rural customers will not be able to travel, have a dislocated journey on road coaches or will need to make other plans," he said.
"This will particularly impact regional customers and means they may not make it home for Christmas."
NSW Trainlink will suspend some intercity and regional services from as early as 3.30pm on Monday and resume from 5.30am on Tuesday. They have warned there "will be flow on effects later in the week" from the stoppage.
RTBU NSW Secretary Alex Claassens said "workers are taking a stand for safety".
"We want basic hygiene, safety and privatisation commitments and we simply can't let the NSW Government get away with not delivering them," Mr Claassens said.
"These aren't just issues that impact workers - these are issues that impact every single person who gets on a train."
Mr Claassens said the RTBU is ensuring the movement of freight trains will not be impacted by the action.
"We are pulling out all the stops to ensure that vital freight movement is not impacted at all though, so people's Christmas presents and other vital goods will still get through."
The strikes come as the RTBU is negotiating a new enterprise agreement with the NSW Government. Among the key sticking points in current negotiations are:
- privatisation - workers want a commitment to services and jobs in the event of privatisation;
- safety claims - workers want a guarantee that any changes to services will leave them as safe or safer than current;
- hygiene - workers want a commitment to maintaining the existing level of hygiene using good, publicly owned jobs.
Members from the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union at Sydney Trains are also taking action on Monday. They are calling on management to "show some respect to these essential workers and bargain in good faith".
"Rail workers have kept this state moving throughout the pandemic. We had to fight for basic safety protections from Sydney Trains. Now we're fighting to keep our hard-earned conditions, using protected industrial action as is our right," State President AMWU NSW & ACT and Sydney Trains worker Keith Lang said.
"Sydney Trains wants to introduce rostering changes that would see maintenance workers rostered on every weekend and on night shifts - ending any chance of a work-life balance."
