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Rail track maintenance workers across New South Wales have walked off the job for 24 hours over a breakdown in wage negotiations.
The stop work that involves 170 workers began at 3:00am and follows a five-hour stoppage last week.
The Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) workers are responsible for maintaining rail infrastructure and the strike action affects depots across New South Wales.
The state secretary of the Rail, Tram and Bus union Alex Claassens said the negotiations had been going since October 2016.
“It’s now got to the point where the members have said enough is enough,” he said.
“Three times the company’s gone out with an agreement the members have voted down and we’ve been locked in talks all that time.”
Union says workers crucial to rail safety
Mr Claasens said the importance of the workers could not be under estimated.
“These guys and girls do really crucial work maintaining our track infrastructure, our signals and our tracks to make sure we can run on them properly and safely,” he said.
Stop work rallies were held on Monday, where workers protested for better wages and conditions.
One man told the ABC he felt angry and undervalued by ARTC.
“We’ve got a company that earns hundreds of millions of dollars each year and all we want is just to be recognised, basically,” the worker said.
“We think that we’re worth more than what they have offered us and we basically just want to be recognised.
“All of our work is definitely safety critical and without us you could not run the tracks.
“Everything we do is to certify that the trains are safe to run on those tracks.”
ARTC says it is committed to finding a resolution
The ARTC said it wanted the matter resolved.
“We don’t anticipate train services will be impacted today and where employees wish to participate in protected industrial action, we respect their right to do so,” the ARTC said.
“We are committed to finding a resolution on this matter, and enterprise agreement discussions with staff and union representatives continue.”
Today’s strike is protected industrial action and was flagged in advance and allowed to proceed by the Industrial Relations Commission.
The action involves workers at ARTC depots around New South Wales, including around 60 who are based in the Hunter Valley region.
Topics: industry, industrial-relations, rail, newcastle-2300, nsw
