AMWU NSW Secretary, Paul Bastian has hit back at claims workers are to blame for the failures of the NSW transport system.

In an opinion piece published in the Sydney Morning Herald, Mr Bastian wrote:

"Your editorial ("Trains and boats and pains", October 22) provides a good synopsis of the Barry O'Farrell line on the transport system - if you don't really understand the issues and you don't have the answers, blame the workers.

You refer to the Walker report of last year, which identified the maintenance problems at Sydney Ferries. These include the diversity of vessels, the fact that many of the vessels were not purpose-built, the lack of investment by governments of both persuasions in essential capital works and infrastructure and that there are many vessels up to 32 years old in the fleet. To quote Bret Walker: "The picture of continual shortcomings should not be viewed as a criticism of … the many skilled and diligent tradespeople and workers at the shipyard. The mounting challenge posed by the ageing and diverse fleet … largely explains the disappointing pattern of availability and reliability, rather than any slackness at the shipyard."

We are more than happy to benchmark the maintenance workers at Sydney Ferries against any private operators. Despite the problems Walker points to, the Balmain shipyard has been at the cutting edge in relation to skills acquisition and multiskilling for many years.

It is also simplistic to lay blame entirely at the feet of maintenance workers in the case of RailCorp. While there has not been the level of skills development in the rail transport industry that there has been at Sydney Ferries, other critical factors include a failure by RailCorp to invest in skills upgrades for its workers despite continual requests by the workers; failure to invest adequately in critical capital works and maintenance infrastructure; inadequate management and again an aged fleet.

The NSW Auditor's report in 2006 refers to the period when Michael Costa was the minister for transport as marked by an underspend of $175 million on capital expenditure needed to improve safety and reliability.

Rail maintenance workers have agreed to a benchmarking exercise on skills and work practice; it's a pity that the same demand is not placed against RailCorp management."