Unions must defend jobs in GB Railways transition

The legislation to create Great British Railways has been introduced to Parliament. It's obviously a good thing. But there is no sign that the unions are in any way ready for protecting jobs during the transition. RMT's statements haven't sounded any alarm, perhaps because RMT is thinking most people affected will be office staff and junior management, not usually represented by RMT. TSSA has made a good statement, saying that there needs to be a "just transition" to GBR to protect jobs. But TSSA doesn't accompany this with workplace organisation. There needs to be workplace campaigning and recruitment across all grades in the industry, involving all unions, because we don't really know how the reorganisation will affect us. This is the biggest shake-up of the industry since privatisation. The unions need to work together to shape what this will look like. Protecting jobs must be at the heart of this.

The people we're talking about are not the high up managers, who will make sure they are protected. We mean, for example, technical specialists in timetable planning, people who are not highly paid but have a huge amount of skill and expertise in a very complex area. The current set up sees train operating companies "bidding" to run services on Network Rail infrastructure, with Network Rail and train operating companies providing staff to manage the negotiations. The current inefficient situation is likely to be remedied when train service and infrastructure are united under GBR. But this cannot be an excuse to shed jobs.

The uncertainty generated by the transition to GBR is already beginning to bite. Within Network Rail, all departments have been instructed to find operational efficiencies of 15%. This is leading to posts being held vacant, resulting in additional workload for a lot of staff. Again, this pressure falls hardest on the staff in lower bands, who do the bulk of the work but are removed from decisions about recruitment. Network Rail hasn't declared that these cost savings are connected to the transition (just doing their bit to help the public finances.) But, the widespread feeling is that uncertainty, and under-recruitment, will continue until GBR is better understood. A lot of people in Network Rail are worried about job security. The unions' response has been nowhere near visible enough at workplace level.