A Senseless Strike !

Just after the end of the second world war we had electricity blackouts in New South Wales. The power stations were running short of coal because the miner's unions were striking to resist the installation of longwall mining equipment.  They claimed the only coal mined in NSW would be by men wielding picks and shovels.
The government of the day sent in the army to get coal from open cut mines.  Resistance against innovation has been with us since the industrial revolution and today mining would be unimaginable if that pick and shovel era had persisted.

Another similar confrontation is taking place in our transport sector.  The $2.4 billion purchase of new electric train sets to service the Central Coast, South Coast, Newcastle and Blue Mountains sits idle because the powerful Rail, Tram and Bus Union is refusing to crew the new trains.

Essentially, this is a demarcation dispute.   In the rest of the world these modern trains operate with just a  driver, but the unions here demand that each train also has a " guard ", and that is a holdover from the old days of steam trains.  On stations with a curved platform the driver could not see the length of the train and the guard waved a flag to signal that it was safe to proceed.  The modern train has cameras situated to show the driver conditions within and outside the train he or she is driving.

These modern trains are being built in South Korea and they are arriving here in batches of ten each month.  It will take months of testing across the intended routes before they will officially go into service and that is not happening because of the union boycott.  As a result, commuters face severe overcrowding on the old train sets which lack space for luggage and the modern amenities that make train travel a part of twenty-first century life.

What is infuriating is that this strike persists despite the New South Wales government agreeing to staff the trains with a driver - and a guard.  The unions want a water tight guarantee that there will be a guard on each train in the network - forever, and no government can foretell what innovations might develop in the future.

This Coronavirus drop in passenger numbers delivers an opportunity to get the new train testing done with less disruption to existing services but the opportunity is being wasted.  Each year the number of commuters  travelling by train grows steadily and the new train sets will deliver long asked for innovations such as charging points for mobile phones and space for bikes and other luggage.

The public have every right to be angry about this senseless strike.  The reason for having train guards has long ceased but union  persistence in feather bedding the workforce is forcing NSW to be out of step with the rest of the world.  Just imagine the coal mining industry today if that " pick and shovel " edict had become a reality  !