Rail unions

Fare Free London (FFL), the new campaign demanding free public transport in the capital, took a modest but important step forward recently when it was backed by the London Transport Regional Council of the RMT union, following a motion I moved through my own branch, RMT Bakerloo line. The London Transport Region represents around 13,000 workers across Transport for London, including London Underground and the Docklands Light Railway. In promoting the campaign in union meetings, and discussing the idea of free public transport with workmates, I sometimes encounter the argument that our unions...

I experienced five general secretaries of my union (NUR, then RMT) during my career on the railway. Another is coming up shortly, if rumours are to be believed. The first was Sid Weighell (1975-83), without doubt the most mendacious of them all. His sole aim in life was to keep the old Communist Party from taking control of “his” union. No trick was too underhand to use, especially obscure rules from the union rule book. He defied the National Executive on many occasions, with the connivance of the senior assistant general secretary, Vernon Hince, who was lining himself up to take over from...

At the end of June 2022 I was jubilant, having just taken part in three days of national strike as part of the RMT union’s campaign to defend jobs, pay and conditions on Train Operating Companies (TOCs) and Network Rail (NR). It was a similar feeling for many of the strikers. And we weren’t alone. We had taken heart from the disruption we’d caused and the passing public’s positive response, and a far larger group of people had learnt about our dispute by gleefully watching hostile interviewers being taken down by our General Secretary (GS) Mick Lynch. Gregor Gall, who published a biography of...

Train drivers’ union Aslef has, by calling an additional five-day strike,forced LNER, the only Train Operating Company which threatened to issue “work notices” against the union’s pay strikes between 30 Jan and 5 Feb, under the Tories’ new Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act, to back down from that threat. Aslef’s success provides unions with one clear tactic for confronting bosses’ attempts to use anti-strike laws to undermine industrial action. But it will not be a silver bullet. What happens if further strike dates fail to produce a climbdown? What if the original plan is for an indefinite...

Tube unions remain in negotiations with the company over how to distribute the £30 million of additional funding secured thanks to RMT’s threatened week of action from 5-11 January. Various proposals are in circulation, some involving a higher percentage pay rise, others increasing the base percentage rise only slightly whilst adding an additional flat-rate, tiered by grade. RMT is rightly pushing for a final settlement based on the latter model, to ensure the lower-paid grades — i.e., the people who need a pay rise most — benefit more. Tubeworker has argued that we should name additional...

On 1 December we begin a nine day ban on Rest Day Working (RDW, voluntary overtime) and a series of one day strikes by train driver members of Aslef employed by Train Operating Companies (TOCs). A long-running dispute over pay has turned also into a battle over conditions of employment. On the table since the beginning of 2023 has been an offer of 4% for 2022-3 and 4% for 2023-4 in return for huge cuts to key terms and conditions on training, redundancy, ill-health retirement (important in a job where a wide range of health conditions can make it unsafe to continue work), rostering (what and...