Sydney train workers have voted to go ahead with a 24-hour strike on Monday.

In a decision likely to cause havoc for Sydney’s transport network, less than 6% of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union’s 6,000 members in New South Wales voted in favour of calling off the action.

The state government, through both the treasurer, Dominic Perrottet, and Sydney Trains, responded by launching legal action to try and halt the strike. A hearing on Wednesday afternoon before the deputy commissioner of the Fair Work Commission, Jonathan Hamberger, was adjourned until 5.30pm at the request of union lawyers.

The government’s lawyers petitioned the commissioner to deal with the matter on Wednesday, to allow time to prepare for disruptions to the network if the strike goes ahead.

It came after members of the RTBU voted overwhelmingly to go ahead with planned industrial action. Only 5.93% of members – about 360 – supported calling off the industrial action over pay and conditions via a mobile phone survey on Wednesday.

“Unfortunately my members have overwhelmingly decided that the offer on the table is nowhere near good enough and our industrial action will continue,” the RTBU NSW secretary, Alex Claassens, told reporters.

It came after Claassens said on Tuesday that the terms of a new deal had been reached with Sydney Trains over a new three-year agreement.

The offer was sent to members overnight to allow them to vote on whether to accept it by lunchtime on Wednesday.

Earlier on Wednesday Guardian Australia reported that a Sydney law firm had taken legal action to stop the impending rail strike.

Harmers Workplace Lawyers made the announcement that it had filed legal action in the Fair Work Commission in its own right, arguing the strike would directly affect its staff, who rely on the city’s trains to travel to work.



But Hamberger said in the hearing that he was unlikely to deal with the Harmers matter on Wednesday.

In a statement earlier on Wednesday a spokesman for Harmers said the company had filed the action because the “proposed industrial action is not in the public interest and is excessive”.

“The community – employers and employees alike – should not be exposed to the enormous disruption and economic loss simply because two warring parties cannot agree,” the statement read. “Harmers Workplace Lawyers has legal standing in this dispute because, under the legislation, it would have been directly impacted if this industrial action proceeds.”

The validity of the union vote was questioned after up to a third of workers said they had not received an automated text ballot.



Workers replied “yes” to a text message to support calling off a proposed 24-hour strike on Monday, with a non-reply counted as a “no” vote.

However, many workers posted on the RTBU Facebook page on Wednesday morning saying they were still to receive the text just hours before the midday deadline.

“I would like to know why this has been sent out as an SMS,” one said. “There are many of us on leave at the moment that do not have our work phones with us.”

Another said: “I didn’t get one either. What number do we call to make sure our phone numbers are right?”

With more than 9,000 workers due to stop work on Monday, the RBTU said about 6,500 members had received the text.

The transport minister, Andrew Constance, said the vote on Sydney Trains’ latest offer to workers seemed as if it was planned to fail.

Constance said services would be cut from 2,900 during weekdays to 1,600 due to industrial action placing an indefinite ban on overtime. He said trains would operate on a Saturday schedule, cutting services across the state on Thursday and Friday, the Australia Day holiday.

“Tomorrow is going to be disruptive,” he said on Wednesday.

In its statement, Harmers said: “Our considered view is that the proposed strike is not ‘protected’ under the legislation but is to a significant extent an old-fashioned ‘demarcation dispute’.

“We will be requesting the commission issue orders to stop the industrial action if the industrial action is not called off.”

But Claassens dismissed the legal action as a stunt.

“The courts will no doubt see this for what it is – a baseless claim riddled with inconsistencies,” he said. “This is clearly nothing more than a disappointing political stunt.”

The union initially wanted a 6% pay rise and improved conditions, with members now considering a 2.75% increase as part of a package including free bus travel and a one-off $1,000 payment.

It comes amid recriminations over the Sydney rail crash that saw 16 people taken to hospital when a train failed to stop before hitting barricades at Richmond station on Monday.

On Wednesday the state government was criticised by some transport experts for the slow rollout of an automatic train protection system, or ATP, that it promised to introduce four years ago.

The ATP monitors train speed and can override drivers to apply emergency brakes.