Millions of Sydney commuters brace for transport headaches amid fears train strikes could resume ‘within weeks’

Millions of Sydney commuters could be plunged into transport chaos amid fresh warnings protected industrial action by one of the country’s most powerful unions could be back on “within weeks”.

A full bench of the Fair Work Commission in February ruled in favour of a “cooling-off period” until July 1, halting all industrial action to focus on negotiations and reaching a final deal.

It came after months of escalating protected industrial action and brinkmanship between Sydney Trains and NSW Train Link and the Combined Rail Union, led by the Rail, Tram, and Bus Union.

The RTBU was dragged back before the commission by the rail entities on Friday following an application to suspend the cooling-off period by one of the unions involved in the bargaining.

RTBU NSW secretary Toby Warnes said any action could not resume until a decision was handed down by the Federal Court about the application that it said would be delivered soon.

If successful, Mr Warnes said the unions would have to notify the rail entities of industrial action 10 days prior and had also undertaken to return before the commission before doing so.

Strikes thus could resume “no sooner than a month, six weeks”.

The Combined Rail Union had been seeking a 32 per cent pay rise across four years, but the government had only offered 15 per cent for the same period as well as the merger of the rail entities.

The most recent dispute between the unions and the entities focused on a one-off payment of $4500 included in the workers’ latest pay agreement, which unions said should be part of the deal.

Since the suspension was put in place more than a month ago, Mr Warnes said the state government had “taken advantage” of the cessation in strikes to move a further 40 issues in dispute.

“The government’s taken advantage of the fact that we have no industrial action available to us and has sought to gain back some ground it lost in the six months prior to the order,” he said.

“We need to get decision makers in the room. We’ve been engaging in the Fair Work conciliation process, which has unfortunately led us to the point where we are a long way apart.

“We haven’t seen anybody from the government at all since that order was made. The Transport Minister has been in touch, but we haven’t been in any direct negotiations with them.

“As I’ve said on previous cases, we can get this done over the course of one night (or) two nights, but we just need those people who make the decisions to actually be in the room.”

The Communications, Electrical, Electronic, Energy, Information, Postal, Plumbing and Allied Services Union earlier this month applied to the Federal Court to lift the suspension order.

Representing the union, which includes the Electrical Trades Union, Patrick Knowles SC told the court on Wednesday that the commission had not accounted for the unions’ individual actions.

He said the order, which was made for the benefit of negotiations, did not indicate why the suspension of the CEPU’s action specifically aided in furthering a final deal with the government.

The FWC told the court the tribunal would have had to, by that logic, “specifically assess the benefit of suspending each individual action”, of which there were hundreds.

RTBU lawyer Leo Saunders told the Fair Work Commission on Friday that the unions were “making some progress but not on the big-ticket issues” in an application to halt the suspension.

FWC President Adam Hatcher said any decision to halt the suspension order would have to wait until an outcome was handed down on the CEPU’s application, otherwise it would be moot.