As I write this, the Rail, Train, and Bus Union (RTBU) has taken industrial action has decided only run Australian built trains on the Sydney Trains network. Services right across the network are in all kinds of disarray and while the general public has been directly affected by this industrial action, they appear to be fine with it. I am personally inconvenienced but I am very much fine with this.
The RTBU's motives are actually pretty reasonable. Train staff kept have trains working during the pandemic, in spite of the danger that the virus could have presented them with a chance of death, and the NSW State Government under the then Treasurer and now Premier Dominic Perrottet and Transport Minister Andrew Constance have decided to reward train staff by announcing a works program which will replace the K-Sets and Tangaras with the next generation of trains that will not have guards on board. That is like saying: "Thank you for your hard word; by the way, you're fired."
Sydney's trains are unique in the fact that we are one of the few cities in the world to run full-size overland stock on heavy rail lines. I know of very few suburban rail networks in the world where you could run a mainline diesel train through an underground commuter station. Not only can you do this in Sydney but we have done in the past.
That presents an operational challenge which is different to say the Paris Metro, New York Subway or London Underground. Those three networks have all run driverless trains, quite apart from running trains without guards, but those networks also run relatively short trains compared with Sydney. We have already seen platform length barriers and doors on the Northwest Metro line in Sydney but to retrofit that kind of infrastructure to a lot of Sydney's suburban railway stations is an exercise in stupidity.
A train heading toward the city in Sydney, can be 50km away, running in the rain and will be outside for the vast majority of the journey. You could remove the duty of the guards and place it upon the responsibility of the driver and maybe that is what the NSW State Government intends to do but that says to me in principle that whoever is making the decision, doesn't fundamentally understand what the real world is like.
Suppose that you are at Doonside Station on a Wednesday night and that it is raining. Do we really expect the driver of the train to pull the train up, monitor all of the eight cars, open and close the doors, and then pull away without either leaving people behind or getting out and helping less mobile passengers out of or onto the train? The NSW State Government does.
Suppose that it is 07:39pm on a Thursday evening and some hoodlums have got on the train. They are terrorising a woman on the train and threaten to steal her handbag. Let's remove the guard from this scenario. My advice would be for her to never get on the train in the first place because the trains are now decidedly unsafe.
The RTBU who is not only looking out for their members and their working conditions, as front line workers who provide an essential service which maintains the proper functioning of our fair city, is also looking out for the general public; to whom they provide that service. Say what you like about whether or not you think that unions have too much power, the truth is that nobody else with any power whatsoever is in the corner of the general public and fighting for us.
I am pretty sure that the Premier Dom Perrottet who is the member for Epping, doesn't really use the train network even though his electorate is one of the most connected. I am pretty sure that the Treasurer Andrew Constance who is the member for Bega, also doesn't really use the train network because trains only go as far south as Nowra. I am also sure that neither of these people either care or have to live with the consequences of their actions. Power without responsibility almost always leads to knavery; which invariably it must do because people without exception are selfish.
If the pandemic taught us anything, it is that government can if it wants to, literally pay us money to stay home. I personally think that that's a horridly inefficient use of that money and so it would be more sensible if government employed more people to provide services for us. The point is that the government isn't a business and doesn't really have to return dividends and profits to its shareholders. As it is, the provision of public transport is generally a loss making enterprise; where the difference in revenues and expenses can be recouped through taxation. Paying people to do jobs for us, such as drive trains, keep us all safe on those trains, and provide the necessary ancillary staff for the railway network, is I think a sensible use of government funds.
The reason why governments in principle do not want to provide services, is that there are forces who do not want to pay tax. The people who have much, would rather that the people who have little have even less. This is further evidenced by the fact that wage theft is pretty much rampant all over the world and slavery doesn't exist any more, only because people had to fight for the right not to be held as chattel goods; sometimes through the payment of their blood on battlefields. The people who would prefer that government is run like business, act as if they have no responsibility to society whatsoever. Those people are currently in charge of the NSW State Government.
I also agree with the notion from the RTBU that their industrial action means that they are not driving foreign built trains today. Again, it is good that they government pays people to provide goods and services; and in this case the goods in question are club goods that we all share. I find it criminally stupid that we buy trains from overseas.
Firstly that the NSW State Government thinks so very little of the people of NSW that it would prefer to spend money overseas and employ people in other countries, than it would to pay people within its own borders. A parent doesn't kick their child in the face and give that child's dinner to the next door neighbour's children; but the NSW State Government certainly does.
Secondly it says that the NSW State Government in its pursuit of reducing its costs, would rather refuse to train the people living in its own borders and prefer to buy things on the cheap. This says that it doesn't even think that the people of NSW are worth investing in, for the future either.
The trains which are being operated on the network today are the remaining K-Sets which were being built until 1985 and the Tangara sets which were built from 1987 until 1995. That means that for 26 years, or a generation of people, governments on both side the aisle have thought so very little of the people of NSW that they chose to employ nobody in the state to build our trains.
I really really really like the idea of today's industrial action, it manages to strike a bell in the morning and afternoon peak periods but because we are still in a pandemic, it's not incredibly disruptive. It has been chosen deliberately to say something about where we choose to buy our trains from. Perhaps elegantly (insofar as much as industrial action can be elegant) this is the people whose jobs are directly affected, making use of the voice that they have and speaking. If there is no voice willing to speak for you, then you'd best learn how to yell.
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