Thousands of Sydneysiders were hoping for a smooth commute home on Thursday night after rail workers were ordered to stop industrial action immediately.
The Fair Work Commission has ordered an interim order stopping all strike action until a hearing is held next week.
The strike ban came into effect 6.30pm Thursday.
The NSW government earlier submitted a 424 application to the Fair Work Commission in a bid to force industrial action to stop.
Premier Chris Minns ended his January holiday early and returned to work in order to lodge the new form with the Fair Work Commission.
This new claim allows the commission to immediately halt any protected industrial action if it’s found to endanger life, personal safety or health, or welfare of people or cause significant damage to the n economy or part of it.
The breakthrough comes after two days of travel chaos caused by the Electrical Trades Union and the Rail, Tram and Bus Union’s ongoing pay dispute.
An estimated 40 per cent – about 1,500 rail services – were cancelled or significantly impacted on Wednesday and an additional 1,000 services were cancelled on Thursday.
Fair Work Commission president Alan Hatcher said the mandatory interim order had to be made as it would not be practicable to have the legal challenge heard within five days as is required under legislation.
Sydney Trains lawyer Jamie Darams SC said the rail authority would provide nine witness statements at a full bench hearing next Wednesday and Thursday next week.
The statements would be ‘mostly directed to the operational consequences of the work bans in place and the effects of those bans’, he said.
‘In particular, we will be relying upon the welfare, endangerment to the welfare and also, I understand at this stage, health and safety.’
Mr Daram made clear that Sydney Trains wanted the matter ‘heard sooner rather than later’.
James Emmett, who represents NSW Industrial Relations Minister Sophie Cotsis, said the government would provide evidence about economic impact in the hearings.
Mr Emmett said this evidence would prove the rail strikes caused ‘significant damage to an important part of the economy, as well as welfare harm to welfare’.
Premier Minns said officials were forced daily to unpick hundreds of actions to run basic services.
‘That’s a joke,’ he said.
‘You can’t run a public transport system in an international city like Sydney, where every morning you have to work out whether running a simple service from Hurstville to Bondi Junction trips up three, four or 10 different industrial bans.
‘We don’t know how many small businesses have been smashed because of 50 per cent of trains not running.’
The orders sought through the commission would thwart the union’s ability to instigate a new set of work bans and force it into arbitration, where the industrial court could dictate the pay rise workers received.
Earlier, the Rail Tram and Bus Union called the government’s application ‘nothing more than a desperate attempt to shift the blame for its own failure to negotiate with workers’.
‘It engages in cheap political tricks designed at achieving headlines, pays law firms top dollar to bring bogus legal cases and anything else it can to avoid sitting at the bargaining table,’ the union said.
NSW train drivers appear unlikely to accept a marginally increased pay offer of 15 per cent across four years but their union has until the end of the day to provide an initial response to the government.
The two sides have been at loggerheads since September, with workers calling for four annual wage increases of eight per cent.
Mr Minns defended not putting the government’s offer out to a workforce vote, over the union’s opposition, saying commuters did not have weeks to wait.
But others say waiting was precisely the problem and Thursday’s intervention was months too late.
‘It’s no good to come after the chaos and after it’s all blown up, and step in and say, you’re trying to fix it,’ opposition transport spokeswoman Natalie Ward said.
Options for refunds or allowing a free travel day were being considered after the premier said fares paid by inconvenienced commuters should be refunded.
Commuter data shows the travelling public ditched rail where they could after navigating long delays on Wednesday morning.
Trips during Wednesday afternoon peak were down 40 per cent while trains were ‘very lightly loaded’ on Thursday morning, Sydney Trains boss Matthew Longland said.
Fewer than three in 10 morning peak trains ran on time.
Sydney Trains has defended docking the pay of workers not completing full tasks, such as crews choosing to staff only half as many inter-city services as normal.