Aside from a southerly change that ripped through overnight complete with drenching rain, thunderbolts and lightning, the story of the day was the ongoing railway industrial dispute. Here we see an OSCAR (Outer Suburban Cars, or H Set long distance train) heading south.

As per Tuesday's photo, I went into the office that day. Part of the reason for choosing Tuesday was that the Electrical and Rail unions planned to restart industrial action in support of a pay claim from Wednesday. Given my 4 hour per day commute, that was something that I wanted to avoid.

That was fortunate since over 1,000 services were cancelled yesterday with commutes across Sydney taking several hours.

The unions are demanding "a 32 per cent increase over four years, and a 35-hour working week" plus an extra 1% superannuation (retirement fund) contribution. That is as per a few media reports but since I don't always trust those, I went to a union website to see for myself. It was close enough to true. It's actually 8% OR the inflation rate for that year, whichever is higher, for each of 4 years. The compounding effect makes it slightly higher than 32%, but it's close enough. Leaving out the "or inflation" condition is excusable I suppose, since if inflation hits 8% for the next 4 years then we're all screwed.

That's still a rather obscene claim.

Some news services reported that the minimum rate of pay for a train driver is $AUD120K / year. I suppose I was expected to be outraged that someone on such a wage should be demanding 32% on top. I mean, I'd sign up for that amount. Sure it's shift work but that's decent money for a job that you can walk away from at the end of the day, which I don't have the luxury of doing. And with overtime on top of that, that could be very appealing! Where do I sign up?

Why at the recruitment page of course, where I found that the starting salaries were in fact between $AUD78K and $AUD86K, not $AUD120K as reported. Employment site seek.com.au estimates the average annual income for a qualified driver (including overtime, shift loadings etc) to be in the $AUD110K to $AUD120K range. So... $120K is not the starting salary, then, but the maximum likely salary. The same reporter did a B roll question to the Minister for Transport. ("B roll" in the sense that it was obviously recorded later with the camera on the reporter, rather than having two cameras at the press conference.) It was along the lines of "Who runs the rail system, you or the unions?" Ah, such a productive question, likely to bring forth a haul of relevant information. The minister replied with an answer to a question which was not that question, as so many politicians do. However to be fair, since the news channel pulled the B roll stunt rather than live recording the question as part of the press conference, we cannot be 100% sure that the question asked before the minister's answer was in fact the reporter's blatantly confected rage bait one. {Head thumps into desk, sigh...} And the legacy media wonder why they have a rapidly expanding credibility gap problem. This is the same network that broadcasts horoscopes as part of its nightly "news".

The government has offered 15% over 4 years since 32% would make France's public accounts look good in comparison by the time you hit year 5. The union seems set to reject it. People are annoyed.

I, on the other hand, am working from home.

But first, a drive down to the gym in the pre-dawn light. As I headed south I noted that long stretches of road lacked street lighting because parts of the grid were down after the storms. As I turned onto the main road south I also noticed a huge, almost black cloudbank directly ahead. Within minutes the rain was so intense that visibility was limited to a couple of metres and every car on the 80km/h road slowed to about 60 km/h because nobody could see anything.

I got to the gym safely, albeit a bit soggy once I made the dash from car to gym door. I also seem to have strained a ligament on my treadmill run. But hey, it could have been worse. I could have been on a train.