Sydney Train Driver Strike - Proper Action Required

The COVID pandemic brings to the table a most serious consequence of the of the Sydney train drivers strike - deaths caused by trains over packed with infectious commuters.

It is a known fact social distancing is a tool we can use to minimise transmission but so many citizens are forced stand shoulder to shoulder in the train carriage during strike action. Surely there is a law to stop the industrial action in such situations. The likelihood of some of the 20 odd deaths per day as a result of COVID can be attributed to the actions of the train union.

Do we need the trains in Sydney at all? Commuters have endured 40 years of train union strikes mainly because if there were no trains pollution would be much higher and traffic congestion would be more of a nightmare. Today is a different story with the advent of electric cars and people working from home.

I suggest at least one (more later) of the Sydney Metro lines be closed; rip up the tracks and replace them with a freeway. By the time it is built, EVs (busses & cars) would be prominent and presto, zero pollution. The plan would send a shock wave through the union. A Union with employees who have held millions of commuters to ransom for decades so they, with minimal responsibility, risk and education can and do, earn twice as much as a six year educated GP with heaps of responsibility.

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We can all find examples where strikes have been very annoying but does that mean industrial action should be forbidden?

Given the way that corporate profits have outgrown wages so much in the last couple of decades in line with reduction in union membership you have to wonder if the fed government policy of decimating the unions was for the good of Australia or just big business. Consider also the way that government sector pay and strongly unionised industries tend to set benchmarks that other employment areas then follow.

We have nurses, teachers, ambulance drivers and other service sectors at busting point because the pay isn’t worth the hours and the low pay keeps away the best workers and keeps status low so recruitment is not keeping up with turnover. These staff shortages in turn puts more pressure on those who stay as their work environment becomes more and more toxic. Better wages does not solve all staff shortage problems but it sure does help.

We could dispense with unions and strikes if fairer wages were offered without industrial action. How might that be achieved?

Evidence please.

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@syncretic I agree with you. If it were not for industrial unions we would be in a terrible situation. Unions the world over have, by and large, benefitted society. My community comments today point directly at the Sydney Trains Union for they I feel are out of control. How dare they cry safety whilst they commit passengers to breathing COVID germs. Perhaps their wages are appropriate and we would like to see all workers earning a fair wage now that the Liberal Boys Club is partly dissolved. The sentiment of the current strikes I hope will help with that.

Nurses, teachers, ambulance drivers have a tremendous responsibility and stress, I would be the first to insist a remuneration on a par with the service they provide. Compared to the platform flag person with little of the fore mentioned.

The evidence, such as pay & responsibility I rely on is easily googled. One I tried was " The Sydney train driver who could earn more than a dentist" found on SMH newspaper.

I thank you for your input as so many readers might not know how much we depend on unions to keep the bully business at bay.

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I would have written: Do we need the train drivers in Sydney at all?

Surely in 2022 we can use driverless trains in Sydney? Problem solved (in a different way).

That only applies to certain occupations. By and large nurses, ambos, front line police, … can’t work from home. Even in occupations where working from home is viable, it has disadvantages, some obvious, some not so obvious.

While working from home has the potential to ease congestion on public transport, strike or no strike, and on our roads, it is hardly a solution to the current ongoing, never-ending strikes.

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Headhunters and similar sites that aggregate industry salaries tell me that a NSW train driver typically earns about $110,000 PA, although some sites say as low as $90,000. This SMH article from 2019 says

Nationally, train drivers earn an annual median income of $114,125, according to data from the tax office.The data shows train drivers rank 58 out of more than 1000 occupations, earning more on average than school principals ($112,075) and dentists ($109,457), but a bit less than general practitioners ($131,982) and pilots ($127,355).

The Transport for New South Wales Salaries and Conditions of Employment Award 2017 says as at 1 July 2018 Transport Service Offices earn from $51,666 (grade 1) to $144,870 (grade 9) PA. What it does not tell me is what extras, allowances etc they may be getting and which jobs are paid which grade.

It may be possible that some drivers earn more than some doctors in some situations but I don’t see any reliable sources that say the typical driver gets double the typical doctor. Train drivers do not have “minimal responsibility”. There are plenty of jobs under the award that don’t have much responsibility but I imagine they get less than drivers.

So far your claim

with minimal responsibility, risk and education can and do, earn twice as much as a six year educated GP with heaps of responsibility.

lacks support.

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Let me know when it is about to happen. I’ll need to top up my shares in Wilson Parking. :joy:

An observation of large cities here or OS.
One can build many motorways into and out of and around the inner portions of a city. What’s at the hub still grinds to a halt. It’s all those inner city roads which are low speed, the needs to accommodate intersections, turning traffic, drop offs, pick ups, emergency services traffic, pedestrians etc that deliver congestion without solution.

That is unless one takes personal use vehicles out of the hub and replaces them with mass transport buses, trams, light rail, and trains. All likely automated with autonomous support. Also removes the need for car parking, and ensures a future for high skilled certified automation engineers to take the place of train drivers. One could look to the airline industry to see how that has evolved.

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And another observation of large cities here or overseas: Each motorway slices the city, creating a barrier to movement across it. True that some cities may use elevated motorways to mitigate that problem, but at increased cost and increased visual pollution - or conversely use bridges over the motorway, but at increased cost and reduced flexibility.

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I’d forgotten that happens.
Some larger cities make for interesting comparisons. Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya have comprehensive public transport. On the inner city roads traffic notably moves relatively freely. Peak hour felt more of a slightly busy time than a long parking lot. Especially compared with Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, Brisbane. Whether the observation is shared, in the larger Japanese cities private vehicles seem to be far less common. Taxis, buses, and smaller commercial vehicles, dominated.

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The living standards in the country are appalling now and as you say big business seems to be running not our leadership. I never know to think anymore just like you have mentioned. A new saying no action means no result.

Not really. Like the OP you have forgotten all about the staff other than drivers - the award covers many other roles.

All this talk of getting rid of trains ignores the fact that for a given carriageway trains move many more people and much greater weight of freight than cars/trucks do and more energy efficiently too. Some love their cars so much they would like to see all the rails ripped up and more roads built much like the trams were taken out of many cities, notably Sydney, only to find that decades later there is no room for light rail - a tram by any other name.

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Maybe. I took the OP at face value. To be honest, I don’t really understand what the strike is all about.

Even so, moving to driverless trains would be a good first step. If nothing else, it would free up a lot of funds, whether that’s for resolving a pay dispute with some other role, fixing alleged safety issues in the rolling stock, …

Yurikamome!

There’s nothing like being able to sit up front and enjoy the view.
P.S.
160,000 passengers daily - Sydney might need more than one. :wink:

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I’ll see your Yurikamome and raise you a PortLiner, which I used to ride daily back in '93/94. It was the first automated guideway transit system in the world. Since then, the line has been extended out to Kobe Airport.

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Hmmm. So Japan had driverless trains more than 40 years ago. Make of that what you will …

I once lived and worked in Sydney.
It makes an interesting comparison to other places where I’ve had no public transport option.

Given a choice,
One for spending more funding motorways, more tolls, more parking costs, more car costs, more pollution, more green house gas emissions, with stresses and the risk of suffering loss, injury or death in a vehicle accident.
or
Another of more investment in redesigning our cities to complement effective and efficient public transport that is overall less expensive, and has none of the negative side effects of the motor vehicle.

Looking elsewhere is an opportunity to see what could be.

The frustration of those who have made the choice or are reliant on public transport in Sydney is not without cause. If Sydney like some other great cities of the world was far more reliant on public transport, would the current impasse have ever arisen?

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No one is wearing a mask in public much…government leaders advocated for reduced isolation periods…very sadly it seems that pretty much no one cares about Covid, the risk of mutations, or the 20ish deaths every day. Maybe because the media, which seems to now prioritise our attention, is bored with it. It’s an interesting statement about our society which appears to view Covid deaths as the cost of doing business. Similarly the road toll which is usually over 1000 every year (just think on that) hasn’t got too many folks concerned because meh…who wants to be the unpopular politically suicidal fool who seeks to mandate higher levels of driver training in order to obtain a licence when it’s just not an issue for most people.

If two people are shot in a gang war the media is all over it despite maybe 3-4 deaths arising annually from such incidents. But if a local Westfield full of unmasked people with just a few infected people passing through the crowd results in one more death arising every day it’s just seen as…unimportant. That’s possibly because many of them are old which dovetails with the parlous state of aged care but that’s whole other issue. A quick look at cause of death stats paints an interesting picture in terms of what causes greatest actual harm to the community and what the media, and in turn we, seem to take seriously.

So I suspect that the unions actually played this well in terms of timing because Covid just isn’t a thing anymore.

Possibly, possibly train strikes have no significant effect on COVID morbidity. No evidence on this point has been presented. Masks are mandated in trains but people don’t want to wear them strike or no.

Governments have done a great deal to reduce the road toll; seat belts, car safety standards, breath testing, extended P-plate systems, etc, the result is:

Road deaths per head of population (or per car or per kilometre driven) are all reducing. If you think driver education will bring it to zero I would like to know how. People will still be stupid. People will still have faith that it won’t happen to them. People still take no notice of fines, warnings and suspensions but go right back to driving like a lunatic.

It isn’t possible to keep everybody safe all the time as the people will fight against any such measure whether it is sensible or not. The more restrictive the rules the harder they will fight. Life is a risk that we must all evaluate.

In Sydney, masks are mandated for all public transport. I usually use trains to get to and from CHOICE. They continue to play the “Masks are mandatory. Fines will apply.” recordings at stations. I wonder when will these fines apply ?

I’ve seen Transit Police walk through the carriage and tell passengers to take their feet off the seats, but not once have they challenged anyone who is maskless. In peak hours I see about 50% compliance, but it drops to around 10% at night.

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Not so different from Melbourne…but rather than dropping at night it always seems to drop as one gets closer to the CBD, and stays high the further out one gets, at least on the Hurstbridge Line.

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