RMT’s decision to cancel strikes planned for 4 and 6 October is a serious misstep. Although the threat of the strikes has forced some concessions from LUL, they are not sufficient to justify calling off action, still less to justify formally settling the stations-staffing elements of RMT’s dispute.
Coming hot on the heels of the last-minute cancellation of strikes planned for late July, a culture is developing on the job where both bosses and union members are beginning to see the naming of strikes as an idle threat. RMT has not struck since 15 March, and now on two occasions has called action only to cancel it for concessions that, whilst real, can hardly be described as meeting union demands. The threat of strikes forced some concessions; it stands to reason that a programme of hard-hitting strikes (not just sporadic 24 hours here and there, but a sustained programme of action) could have forced even more.
The settlement the union has accepted includes the reinstatement of 126 of the 600 jobs cut from stations throughout 2023 (along with 74 reinstatements already agreed, for a total of 200); the withdrawal of plans to downgrade several CSS1 stations to CSS2, meaning CSSs at those stations are no longer threatened with displacement or demotion; a commitment to guarantee all CSA2s a CSA1 position within 12 months of their start date; and a commitment that no further cuts will be made on stations as part of LUL’s commitment to the Department for Transport to deliver hundreds of millions of pounds of “savings”.
These concessions are meaningful. They will make a real difference to the work/life balance of staff at the locations where positions are reinstated. And removing the threat of displacement and demotion from CSS2s is significant. But is 126 jobs enough? Could we have won more by striking? And what about other elements of our dispute, such as protection of earnings for CSMs displaced by an upcoming restructure? LUL hasn’t budged on that, meaning displaced CSMs face potential pay cuts after four years.
Perhaps more significant than any individual detail in the settlement is the fact that RMT’s acceptance was conditional on the union settling our dispute around these issues. This means that, in formal terms, we are no longer in dispute over station staffing levels, or any element of the CSS/CSM restructure. As far as LUL is concerned, we have now “accepted” all of that. In the world of formal industrial relations there is almost always a way of carving out new disputes when necessary, but our “acceptance” of this deal means we will have to free ourselves from that formal constraint, declare a new dispute, and launch a new ballot before we can take any further action on any stations-staffing issue.
Our current ballot mandate expires soon anyway, and the union will be launching a new ballot - in all likelihood, with a concurrent ballot on LUL pay taking place at the same time. But the implication of the acceptance of this settlement for RMT stations and revenue staff is that, if and when we renew the mandate in the main “jobs, pensions, and agreements” dispute, we’ll be able to strike over the issue of staffing cuts in other functions, but not in our own. Certainly we should strike against job cuts elsewhere, for example in Fleet, but to have settled on the issue of staffing in our own function is deeply disappointing.
It should be noted that the process by which these strikes were called off was considerably more transparent and democratic than the “process” by which the July strikes were cancelled. An online meeting of reps was held to discuss LUL’s offer, at which a comprehensive discussion took place, and an indicative vote was held, in which a majority of reps voted in favour of calling off the strikes. But that decision ultimately represents a lack of confidence that mass action by RMT members could deliver further concessions. No-one can say for certain that pressing ahead with strikes would have won more, but we do have a relatively recent historical experience to refer to: on the eve of a planned stations strike against job cuts in January 2017, LUL made an offer to reinstate 200 positions. Then, RMT held its nerve, struck anyway, and href= “https://www.workersliberty.org/blogs/2017-07-26/stations-dispute-wins-concessions-celebrate-wins-organise-push-more”>secured an additional 125 jobs, for a total of 325. Sadly, a different approach was taken this time.
How can we avoid this happening in future? Admittedly there’s a bit of “how to get from A to B? Don’t start from A” in this, but ultimately we need an overhaul of the orthodox culture in the union around industrial action and its replacement with a new one. We need to stop seeing talks and negotiations as the key terrain of battle, and focus on mass direct action instead. We need to take votes for strikes seriously, rather than assuming that, despite having voted for it, members don’t really want to strike, and finding ways to justify calling strikes off rather than acting on the ballot mandate. We need to definitively ditch the 24-hour strike; if we’d taken more sustained action at an earlier point of the dispute, we might’ve won more substantial concessions by now.
And, most of all, we need to invigorate the union’s democracy. If the talk in your mess room or on the gateline is all about how disappointing it is that strikes have been called off, take that talk into your union branch.
We still have major battles to fight over pensions, attacks on policies such as Attendance At Work, job cuts in other functions, and pay. And we will need to find a way to return to the battlefield over stations-staffing issues as soon as possible. All of that requires maximising the union’s activist energy. So if you were planning to be on the picket line on Wednesday and Friday and now have to be on shift instead, why not send this article round a few workmates, use it to kick off a discussion, and help push for a change in strategy for our ongoing and upcoming fights?
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