The plan is to take £2Bn out of the Railways and a similar figure out of London Underground which will, undoubtedly, cost jobs along with employee and passenger safety. On the Permanent Way (P Way) they want to introduce new technology which will cut costs and jobs and will be, arguably, not as reliable and safe at finding faults on the lines as the manual P. Way which has done the jobs for decades, even centuries. The rail companies and government, the latter who claim the strike is nothing to do with them, have also offered a 4% pay increase which is derisory to say the least and this has strings attached. The Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMT) have asked for 7% with no strings attached, but the dispute is chiefly, though not exclusively about job losses and safety with pay an extra. With inflation running at 9% any figure below this is, in real terms, a pay cut in terms of purchasing power. This strikes of similarities with the British Coal Miner’s Strike of 1984/85 when the government announced it was to cut coal production by 4 million tonnes, which was, as the NUM claimed, an understatement which would cost at least 20,000 jobs. It ultimately cost a lot more than that!
The government took away from the private rail companies negotiating rights during the Covid-19 pandemic and have not returned these rights to them. Yet, British Transport Minister, Grant Shapps, insists the negotiations must be “between the union and employers”. How can they be? The employers have had those rights removed and not returned to them, therefore talks must take place with those who hold the negotiating rights, the government and the RMT. Mick Lynch, General Secretary of the RMT, has written to Shapps requesting a meeting and been told more than once that “negotiations must be between the company's management and the unions” with no government involvement. How can this be possible with the negotiating rights being taken away from the rail companies and held by the government? Answer, it is impossible because anything the two may agree can be vetoed by the Department of Transport and their boss, Grant Shapps!
The RMT have indicated on more than one occasion their willingness to talk with only one proviso, “no compulsory redundancies.” If this new technology comes in, and the government know it, then compulsory redundancies, job losses, will accompany these so-called developments. This will hinder the safety of the remaining staff and passengers alike. The new technology the government have in mind, cutting thousands of P Way jobs, are computerised machines which can discover cracks in the lines and other faults quickly and efficiently. All grand sounding, unless you are a track maintenance worker, the P Way have been doing these jobs since the beginning of the Railways, but what if one of these wonder machines misses something? No human back up as that would cost money, a disaster waiting to happen. How often do we hear of computer systems going down, or hackers getting into governments files and bringing whole countries to a standstill? Quite often, even recently in Ireland the entire health service administration was paralysed due to computer hackers, if you believe that story. What if such a scenario happened on Network Rail, the company in charge of track maintenance? I know there are countless other issues which can go wrong with computers and new technology which cannot happen with a team of track maintenance workers, aided by new technology but not replaced by it. The difference is, of course, employees have to be paid wages whereas computers do not! Once again, we came down to ever increasing profits and to hell with the service.
The longer-term intentions of the British Government is to streamline and modernise the railways, no doubt about that, but at what cost to employees and passengers alike? They will, as they did in the Miners Strike of 1984/85, continue to lie their way through. Already Shapps, who on the one hand claims he has nothing to do with the dispute, and on the other tells us of their plans for modernisation, has already hinted at bringing “Agency Staff”, how well trained nobody knows. For example, can you get an agency train-driver, or an agency fully trained guard? I doubt this very much. The next thing he will be hinting at, if he has not already done so, is reforming the 1906 Trade Dispute Act which allows a certain amount of immunity for unions in Britain from being prosecuted by employers for losses incurred during a trade dispute. This has not yet come to pass, though Thatcher had a good try, but allow the legislation Shapps is talking of to bring in agency staff and could this be the thin edge of the wedge? Let’s not jump to conclusions but bear it in mind.
The government took away from the private rail companies negotiating rights during the Covid-19 pandemic and have not returned these rights to them. Yet, British Transport Minister, Grant Shapps, insists the negotiations must be “between the union and employers”. How can they be? The employers have had those rights removed and not returned to them, therefore talks must take place with those who hold the negotiating rights, the government and the RMT. Mick Lynch, General Secretary of the RMT, has written to Shapps requesting a meeting and been told more than once that “negotiations must be between the company's management and the unions” with no government involvement. How can this be possible with the negotiating rights being taken away from the rail companies and held by the government? Answer, it is impossible because anything the two may agree can be vetoed by the Department of Transport and their boss, Grant Shapps!
The RMT have indicated on more than one occasion their willingness to talk with only one proviso, “no compulsory redundancies.” If this new technology comes in, and the government know it, then compulsory redundancies, job losses, will accompany these so-called developments. This will hinder the safety of the remaining staff and passengers alike. The new technology the government have in mind, cutting thousands of P Way jobs, are computerised machines which can discover cracks in the lines and other faults quickly and efficiently. All grand sounding, unless you are a track maintenance worker, the P Way have been doing these jobs since the beginning of the Railways, but what if one of these wonder machines misses something? No human back up as that would cost money, a disaster waiting to happen. How often do we hear of computer systems going down, or hackers getting into governments files and bringing whole countries to a standstill? Quite often, even recently in Ireland the entire health service administration was paralysed due to computer hackers, if you believe that story. What if such a scenario happened on Network Rail, the company in charge of track maintenance? I know there are countless other issues which can go wrong with computers and new technology which cannot happen with a team of track maintenance workers, aided by new technology but not replaced by it. The difference is, of course, employees have to be paid wages whereas computers do not! Once again, we came down to ever increasing profits and to hell with the service.
The longer-term intentions of the British Government is to streamline and modernise the railways, no doubt about that, but at what cost to employees and passengers alike? They will, as they did in the Miners Strike of 1984/85, continue to lie their way through. Already Shapps, who on the one hand claims he has nothing to do with the dispute, and on the other tells us of their plans for modernisation, has already hinted at bringing “Agency Staff”, how well trained nobody knows. For example, can you get an agency train-driver, or an agency fully trained guard? I doubt this very much. The next thing he will be hinting at, if he has not already done so, is reforming the 1906 Trade Dispute Act which allows a certain amount of immunity for unions in Britain from being prosecuted by employers for losses incurred during a trade dispute. This has not yet come to pass, though Thatcher had a good try, but allow the legislation Shapps is talking of to bring in agency staff and could this be the thin edge of the wedge? Let’s not jump to conclusions but bear it in mind.
Nobody, least of all the unions, have a problem with progressive modernisation. It can be a good thing in many ways, for example modernising the rolling stock to be more environmentally friendly would be considered by all to be forward thinking. An example of this could be the move from steam power to diesel and from diesel to electrification. Perhaps more electrification and other environmentally friendly moves, instead of concentrating on profits, on profits, year on year maybe considered a bright way of looking forward for the rail and underground networks.
Talking of the London Underground who got rid of the guards on many lines, perhaps by now all of them, accidents on these unguarded trains have happened and gone unreported. I was on one, the Victoria Line, when a computer malfunction caused the door of the almost empty tube to open and then correct itself by closing again. Now, this was not reported or made the news because very few passengers were travelling at that hour of the evening, but what if that had occurred during rush hour when the tube would have been packed? Bodies would have been flung out of the carriage onto the underground track, in between stations in a deep tunnel! Imagine the carnage and chaos!! That therefore questions the safety aspects of these modernisation plans.
Now what of job losses? This is exactly why the government will not agree to the RMT demands of no compulsory redundancies because, it goes without saying, if a machine, no matter how unreliable on the safety issue, can do the work of ten men then ten jobs will go. Shapps calls Mick Lynch’s demand for no compulsory redundancies an “unreasonable” starting point. I call it common sense, certainly from an employee point of view.
At the time of writing the strikes on Britain’s rail and underground networks have been very effective. Now even the managers union, the TSSA (Transport and Salaried Staffs Association) are talking of balloting their members for strike action and joining the RMT on the picket lines. The managers know that if rail jobs go then, it may be curtains for many of them also. After all a manager cannot manage nothing! Once again similarities can be drawn with the pit strike. At the time, late in 1984, the Pit Deputies union, NACODS (National Association of Colliery Overseers and Deputies) voted by 81% to join the NUM on strike. The Deputies knew if a pit closed down, they would have no pit to supervise. The leadership of this small but influential union called off the strike at the last minute, claiming to have cobbled together a deal with the Coal Board and Thatcher. Noticeable it was to see not one Deputies job was saved through this so-called deal, but the pensions of the leadership were safeguarded! This so-called deal was never put to the membership of NACODS in a ballot, it did not suit management’s purpose to do so, as it may well have been rejected (more on this subject read Striking Similarities by Kevin Morley chapter 14 page 183). Let us hope, if the TSSA ballot their members and get a mandate, the leaderships are not bought off or allow themselves to be so.
As is becoming the normal narrative for the government and management through their ever-faithful media we keep being reminded of the need to stay within the law. Let me quote one of Mick Lynch’s predecessors, the late Sam McClusky of the National Union of Seamen, now part of the RMT, “I am sick of hearing about the law. The law is there to crush us, if we let it.” Never a truer statement made and one which the trade union movement everywhere would do well to remember.
So, we have a situation in which much of Britain’s workforce cannot get to work due to transport problems. There is an argument these workers should not be going to work anyway with a group of workers on strike, they too should be out. “An injury to one is of concern to us all” to quote Jim Larkin! Now, with a crisis on the rail network set to possibly escalate, other workers unable to get to work the British Minister for Transport, Grant Shapps, tells us the situation has nothing to do with him. What exactly does a Transport-Minister do then for a living? What is the point having him or, for that matter, any other Minister all of whom appear to do next to fuck all in the way of work!
We also hear much about many workers “working from home” as a lot did during the pandemic. Well, that may be all very well now with the warm weather but what happens in the winter months of colder times? Homes need heating which costs money and if a person, normally out of the home for eight hours per day, assuming this strike has not been resolved, is now spending those hours at home, and with energy prices, so we are told across Europe, set to sky rocket who is going to pay the higher bills? The employers? There’s more chance of knitting fog than them paying or even contributing towards their employees energy costs.
At the time of writing the strikes on Britain’s rail and underground networks have been very effective. Now even the managers union, the TSSA (Transport and Salaried Staffs Association) are talking of balloting their members for strike action and joining the RMT on the picket lines. The managers know that if rail jobs go then, it may be curtains for many of them also. After all a manager cannot manage nothing! Once again similarities can be drawn with the pit strike. At the time, late in 1984, the Pit Deputies union, NACODS (National Association of Colliery Overseers and Deputies) voted by 81% to join the NUM on strike. The Deputies knew if a pit closed down, they would have no pit to supervise. The leadership of this small but influential union called off the strike at the last minute, claiming to have cobbled together a deal with the Coal Board and Thatcher. Noticeable it was to see not one Deputies job was saved through this so-called deal, but the pensions of the leadership were safeguarded! This so-called deal was never put to the membership of NACODS in a ballot, it did not suit management’s purpose to do so, as it may well have been rejected (more on this subject read Striking Similarities by Kevin Morley chapter 14 page 183). Let us hope, if the TSSA ballot their members and get a mandate, the leaderships are not bought off or allow themselves to be so.
As is becoming the normal narrative for the government and management through their ever-faithful media we keep being reminded of the need to stay within the law. Let me quote one of Mick Lynch’s predecessors, the late Sam McClusky of the National Union of Seamen, now part of the RMT, “I am sick of hearing about the law. The law is there to crush us, if we let it.” Never a truer statement made and one which the trade union movement everywhere would do well to remember.
So, we have a situation in which much of Britain’s workforce cannot get to work due to transport problems. There is an argument these workers should not be going to work anyway with a group of workers on strike, they too should be out. “An injury to one is of concern to us all” to quote Jim Larkin! Now, with a crisis on the rail network set to possibly escalate, other workers unable to get to work the British Minister for Transport, Grant Shapps, tells us the situation has nothing to do with him. What exactly does a Transport-Minister do then for a living? What is the point having him or, for that matter, any other Minister all of whom appear to do next to fuck all in the way of work!
We also hear much about many workers “working from home” as a lot did during the pandemic. Well, that may be all very well now with the warm weather but what happens in the winter months of colder times? Homes need heating which costs money and if a person, normally out of the home for eight hours per day, assuming this strike has not been resolved, is now spending those hours at home, and with energy prices, so we are told across Europe, set to sky rocket who is going to pay the higher bills? The employers? There’s more chance of knitting fog than them paying or even contributing towards their employees energy costs.
Computers, printers and other bits of high-tech equipment do not operate on thin air, they need a power source, electricity. With bills set to rise, due supposedly to the situation in the Ukraine, are the bosses going to foot the bill? I would not hold my breath on that one and the trade unions representing those who have been told they will work from home should be looking at this situation. Or are some employers going to use this, as they did in the pandemic, as a way of transferring their energy costs, heating offices etc, onto the employee who will have to heat their homes and pay the bills or freeze? Are the bosses going to make the workers pay for the wear and tear of their equipment, now they work from home, therefore forcing them to replace all worn out equipment, including mobile phones?
What are the hidden agendas of some bosses? Time will tell us the answer to that one. In the meantime the RMT cannot allow their industry to go the same way as did Coal and Steel and it looks like the dispute will continue and perhaps escalate as other groups of workers, British Airways and health service employees already talking of balloting for strike action. Perhaps a General Strike could come out of this situation but not to worry, it has nothing to do with government and, especially Grant Shapps!!
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Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist |
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