Rail strike challenges Minimum Service Law

Aslef, the union representing the vast majority of train drivers working for Train Operating Companies (TOCs) in the UK, has announced more strikes on pay, alongside nine days of a rest-day working ban.

Members of the union will walk out at Southeastern, GTR Southern/Gatwick Express, GTR Great Northern Thameslink, SWR Island Line and South Western Railway on Tuesday 30 January; at Northern Trains and Transpennine Trains on Wednesday 31 January; at Greater Anglia, C2C and LNER on Friday 2 February; at West Midlands Trains, Avanti West Coast and East Midlands Railway on Saturday 3 February, and at Great Western, CrossCountry and Chiltern on Monday 5 February.

This will be the first strike by the union since Minimum Service Level regulations were finalised in parliament. It is not clear whether TOCs will actually issue "work notices". There are credible rumours that at least some TOC senior managers are opposed to using "work notices".

It would be foolish, though, to assume that TOCs will hold off forever. Despite the fine words coming out of the 9 December TUC Special Conference on Minimum Service Levels, Aslef General Secretary Mick Whelan has stopped short of real defiance of the new laws. He heavily hints in one paragraph of his message to members that drivers should make the individual decision to disobey any work notices they might be given.

These next strikes could prove to be a very important moment for the trade union movement and for the government. If Aslef members "read between the lines" and strike en masse in the face of "work notices", it will be hard for employers to victimise workers or attack the union legally. But if TOCs go for "work notices" and drivers do not feel sufficiently reassured that the union will protect them, then we may not get large enough numbers.

Elsewhere in the message, Whelan virtually guarantees his members that the legislation will be repealed within the first 100 days of a Labour government. Many of us, understandably, will not share his confidence.