Rail activists meet
Supporters of the rank and file railworkers’ bulletin Off The Rails (OTR) met in Birmingham on May 5th. Under the title “Making our unions fit to fight”, the meeting brought together activists from various disputes to share experiences and discuss how what we learned from each other could be used to make the unions more effective and membership led.
First up was a report from the recent Metronet engineering workers’ victory on LUL. This highlighted the advantage for workers in having an elected strike committee that could organise propaganda, demand solidarity from other grades and counter pressure from union HQ to accept poor deals.
From action taken at Central Trains we learnt why unions need a change of tack so that strike days are held on working week days to increase their effectiveness, and why in general it is not a good idea to have two disputes running at the same time.
We also had reports from last year’s Network Rail operational dispute, LUL Service Control and Shorter Working Week. A common theme throughout all the contributions was the necessity for better communication between the union and its members and the union and the public.
We also looked ahead to up and coming disputes including that over Railway pensions and a warning was given that unions must not sacrifice the benefits of new starters to save those of long serving workers. This has happened recently with public sector pensions, and similarly on One Railway, where the union agreed that less experienced drivers would get reduced pay to fund bigger increases for longer serving drivers.
With our focus on solidarity and rank and file organising, we also discussed the merits of the unions’ international campaigns which we found concentrated too much on leaders and not enough on solidarity with workers in struggle.
In the last session we examined ways of generalising our experience and here the role of motions to union AGMs was brought up. And finally a lot of the previous discussion was distilled into a useful list of dispute “dos and don’ts” which will be available in the next edition of OTR.
• www.workersliberty.org/offtherails
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Disputes: Do and Don'ts
This is the list of DOs and DON'Ts of disputes that we put together at the Off The Rails meeting in Birmingham on 5th May.
COMMUNICATION
DO put out loads of information to workers.
DO make sure your reps are out round the workplace consistently, not just when they want workers to vote for a deal!
DO challenge management's divide-and-rule tactics - explain the issues to workers of all grades and locations.
DO research your employer - statistics such as the size of the Chief Executive's bonus compared to your wages can be very powerful.
DO leaflet the public.
SOLIDARITY
DO involve all grades.
DO make sure that no group of workers is overlooked eg. apprentices.
DO get workers in other grades and companies involved.
DO ask for support from other trade unions, local Trade Union Councils and other labour movement bodies.
DO run a political campaign and a campaign amongst passengers and the public.
DO remember that it is often usafe to work in situations where other workers are on strike - use your right to refuse to work on safety grounds.
ORGANISATION
DO organise effective picketing.
DO get your union branch to help with strike organisation.
DO make sure union organising resources eg. picket armbands, posters, are accessible to activists.
DO get effective legal advice.
DO use strike hardship funds.
DO arrange transport, childcare etc to enable as many members as possible to picket.
ACCOUNTABILITY
DO insist that rank-and-file reps are involved in talks and that they are elected.
DON'T allow full-time union officials to take over the running of your dispute, or let the union leadership take decisions over your heads.
DO use industrial action mandates - if members vote Yes to strike, then unless you win outright, go ahead with the strike.
DON'T necessarily believe union officials when they say that an offer is "the best we can get".
DON'T buy into officials' views that they know best.
DO insist that a deal is not signed without members having the chance to vote on it (either at a meeting or by referendum).
DON'T let union leaders publicly declare a deal is great before rank-and-file members have had the chance to judge it.
DON'T allow the union to treat its members like a stage army.
STRATEGY
DO strike on days which hurt big business and your bosses rather than working-class people's leisure time.
DO negotiate and strike at the same time.
DO use your strength.
DO be imaginative and innovative in what action you take.
DO avoid multi-year deals, unless they are really really good.
DON'T trust the employers to keep their promises.
DON'T be bribed by 'backhander' clauses in offers.
DON'T let management make you pay for your own shorther working week.
DON'T, in general, strike over two separate issues (after all, what do you do if management cave in on one dependant on you caving in on the other?)
When you've got the bosses by the short 'n' curlies, DON'T let go!
And the best way to do all this ...
DO set up a rank-and-file strike committee - use it to produce leaflets, appeal for solidarity, co-ordinate workplace organisation, hold negotiators to account, and discuss and agree strategy.
Two disputes?
I think there is an issue that needs clarifying here. The phrase: "in general it is not a good idea to have two disputes running at the same time" is an unfortunate one. Firstly, you may have no choice but to pursue two disputes if you are facing two or more attacks eg. currently on London Underground: the new Rule Books, the Ticket Office cuts, and East London Line privatisation. Secondly, linking and co-ordinating those disputes can be a powerful thing to do. And thirdly, we wouldn't want to endorse union bureaucrats who postpone disputes under the pretext that there is another, more immediate, one to pursue.
But the important point - and the one which I think the article was trying to say - was that it is best to avoid having two separate issues in the same ballot. It creates a problem if, as on Central Trains last Christmas, management concede on one issue conditional on the union conceding on the other. I don't see a problem with parallel ballots on the different issues.
Parallel ballots
Yes, clarification is required because on Central we didn't have two separate issues in the same ballot. We shouldn't do that. Maybe we could just clear this up by amending the bullet point to read:
DON'T, strike over multiple issues using only one ballot (after all, what do you do if management cave in on one dependant on you caving in on the other?)
The problem is that on Central we did take that advice but it didn't help us avoid the difficulty mentioned. There were two separate concurrent ballots (parallel ballots on different issues), one against Crewplan and the other for enhanced payments for holiday working. This was done because we hoped for a quick settlement on the enhanced payments before Christmas while recognising that settlement on Crewplan would probably take longer.
As it turned out management made settlement of enhanced payments conditional on accepting Crewplan.
I think therefore there is a problem with parallel ballots which we might want to look at more closely. Janine lists three attacks on LUL to make the point that sometimes you have to pursue more than one dispute at the same time. When I compare this with the situation on Central Trains the difference seems to be one of how many grades are involved. On Central it was only the guards on both issues, on LUL, at least in the case of ELL privatisation it is potentially all grades. What I would say then is that we should aim for one grade, one grade specific ballot at any one time. This would not rule out an all grades strike against pension cuts for instance whilst any number of individual grades were pursuing one grade specific dispute at the same time.
Whether its possible or desirable to encapsulate this in a bullet point I'm not sure.
Whoops
Sorry, my mistake re Central Trains. You are right, this is too complicated for a bullet point!