Rail unions

Rail, Maritime and Tranposrt Union (RMT); Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF); Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA)

Fantasy Union of Rail and Transport Workers

What kind of union do we need? There are strengths and weaknesses in our current union set-up. Union officials will often have you believe that things can only be done the way they are done, because ... well, because they have always been done that way. We do not agree. We have several criticisms of the existing rail unions, so it is only fair that we set out in more positive terms what our ideal union might look like. Let's call it the Fantasy Union of Rail and Transport Workers (FURT). Some of the good things about this fantasy union could be put in place by changes in rules and ways of...

A hero? Better a democratic leader

At the end of June 2022 I was jubilant, having just taken part in three days of national strike as part of the RMT union’s campaign to defend jobs, pay and conditions on Train Operating Companies (TOCs) and Network Rail (NR). It was a similar feeling for many of the strikers. And we weren’t alone. We had taken heart from the disruption we’d caused and the passing public’s positive response, and a far larger group of people had learnt about our dispute by gleefully watching hostile interviewers being taken down by our General Secretary (GS) Mick Lynch. Gregor Gall, who published a biography of...

Minimum Service: we need open defiance

Train drivers’ union Aslef has, by calling an additional five-day strike,forced LNER, the only Train Operating Company which threatened to issue “work notices” against the union’s pay strikes between 30 Jan and 5 Feb, under the Tories’ new Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act, to back down from that threat. Aslef’s success provides unions with one clear tactic for confronting bosses’ attempts to use anti-strike laws to undermine industrial action. But it will not be a silver bullet. What happens if further strike dates fail to produce a climbdown? What if the original plan is for an indefinite...

Tube: Fight now on next year’s pay

Tube unions remain in negotiations with the company over how to distribute the £30 million of additional funding secured thanks to RMT’s threatened week of action from 5-11 January. Various proposals are in circulation, some involving a higher percentage pay rise, others increasing the base percentage rise only slightly whilst adding an additional flat-rate, tiered by grade. RMT is rightly pushing for a final settlement based on the latter model, to ensure the lower-paid grades — i.e., the people who need a pay rise most — benefit more. Tubeworker has argued that we should name additional...

Rail strike challenges Minimum Service Law

Aslef has announced more strikes on pay, alongside nine days of a rest-day working ban. It is not clear whether TOCs will actually issue "work notices". It would be foolish, though, to assume that TOCs will hold off forever.

Where next for TOCs drivers' strikes?

Between 1 and 9 December, train driver members of Aslef employed by 14 Train Operating Companies (TOCs) held a Rest Day Working ban, as well as a series of one day strikes between the 2nd and 8th, on various groups of two or more TOCs out of the 14.

This was the first time the union had employed...

Behind the train driver strikes

On 1 December we begin a nine day ban on Rest Day Working (RDW, voluntary overtime) and a series of one day strikes by train driver members of Aslef employed by Train Operating Companies (TOCs). A long-running dispute over pay has turned also into a battle over conditions of employment. On the table since the beginning of 2023 has been an offer of 4% for 2022-3 and 4% for 2023-4 in return for huge cuts to key terms and conditions on training, redundancy, ill-health retirement (important in a job where a wide range of health conditions can make it unsafe to continue work), rostering (what and...

Diary of a trackworker: A long and winding road

To continue my reminiscences of decades as a railway trackworker, the development of Health and Safety law on the railway has been a bit of a double-edged sword. It has generally been to the benefit of workers. Legislation has enabled us to stop the more egregious practices. But it has also made us a bit lazy, with workers looking to legislation rather than taking direct action and sometimes being fobbed off despite being in the right. In the early days of my job there were no health and safety reps as such. The job was usually done by one of the staff reps as a secondary role. The supervisor...

Train drivers call December strikes

Train drivers’ union Aslef called one-day strikes and a nine-day overtime ban in its long-running dispute over pay with the Train Operating Companies (TOCs) Drivers will strike at East Midlands Rail and London North Eastern on Saturday 2 December; at Avanti West Coast, Chiltern, Great Northern Thameslink, and West Midlands on Sunday 3 December; at C2C and Greater Anglia on Tuesday 5 December; at Southeastern, Southern/Gatwick Express, South West Rail main line, SWR depot drivers, and Island Line on Wednesday 6 December; at CrossCountry and Great Wester on Thursday 7 December; and at Northern...

DB Cargo jobs to go?

Freight operator DB Cargo has announced that it intends to cut 95 drivers' jobs.

Although it plans to do this by scrapping vacant posts rather than by making any drivers redundant, it is still a very bad move.

Firstly, if it doesn't need these jobs right now, then it could keep the same number of...

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