Workers' Liberty

RMT senior conductor members on Central Trains are balloting on action short of strike in their attempt to halt the imposition of Crewplan. To understand how this has come about while there is still a valid mandate for strike action, we need to go back to a few days before the first strike on Christmas Eve.

At that stage RMT had successfully balloted for strike action on two issues: first, enhanced payments for Christmas holiday working; second, Crewplan. The company made an offer on holiday payments which RMT was prepared to accept, but demanded that RMT also call off the dispute over Crewplan before it would make these payments. The reps refused as there was no move to address our concerns over Crewplan.

Management now deny their insistence on linking the two disputes and have lyingly declared that it is because of company council rep intransigence that staff did not get our bonus.

Local reps discussed and turned down an ACAS proposal: as one rep put it “Going to ACAS was a waste of time”. Reps were in no mood to give up the fight, as the company had suspended a senior conductor for alleged remarks to a scab and were trying to use the suspension as a bargaining chip to get RMT to drop the action over Crewplan.

The company also halted all release for reps and sent letters suggesting senior conductors should get a new company council as the present one wasn’t acting in members’ best interests! This is laughable; as workers and bosses have mutually-opposed interests, it is self-evident that reps who get this much abuse from management are in fact doing just what they should be doing: fighting the bosses and listening to their members!

Responding to concerns among some staff about losing money on more strikes, and trying to keep the action solid, reps proposed another ballot for action short of a strike. Sadly, RMT again missed the chance to give substance to its all-grades union status by not balloting drivers, but this new ballot enables the union to call on members not to handle revenue.

This will need more organisation than a strike. With a strike, most members just stay at home, but with a revenue ban each individual has to make an active decision to take part. Managers will talk to every senior conductor as they book on, so we should prepare a question-and-answer sheet, so when a manager says to a guard “I am instructing you to perform revenue duties”, the guard has a ready response.

We should also produce something for ATEs and anyone else who might be asked to perform the guards’ duties so they know when and how to refuse. It will also be necessary to convince them not to work overtime on dispute days.

What of the majority of drivers organised in ASLEF? They are currently involved in an interminable round of meetings with management, seemingly designed to keep them out of the equation while RMT does all the heavy lifting.

Every week managers meet ASLEF reps from two depots within Central to discuss concerns about Crewplan; the last one happened this week and they’ve been going since December! Why couldn’t all these meetings have been rolled into one?

There will be a firmer indication of ASLEF’s stance when members meet soon to discuss a motion to ballot for action against Crewplan.

ASLEF should join the Crewplan fightback; RMT members should vote Yes for more action.