Now that London Underground's job cuts are a reality, is there any prospect for pushing management back on the tube? And how could the dispute have been fought differently?
This article is longer than the version that appears in the printed paper.
Despite widespread opposition from workers and passengers, London Underground (LU) went ahead with cutting hundreds of station staff posts on 6 February. The new rosters are in now; the cuts have become a reality.
LU announced its job cuts last March. RMT's London Transport Regional Council had seen these cuts coming and already had a campaigning strategy in place. Its campaign, 'SOS: Staff Our Stations', had activists at dozens of stations giving out thousands of leaflets and collecting signatures on petitions. That campaigning was particularly important for station staff; as they are customer-facing, they are often quite concerned about public opinion and get demoralised when the tide of public opinion turns against tube workers. The Regional Council even produced station-specific leaflets letting passengers know exactly how their local station and ticket office would be affected by the cuts. The unions' political campaigning led to several passengers' groups, particularly those representing disabled people, opposing the staffing cuts, and after two meetings which the Tories deliberately made inquorate, the Greater London Assembly also voted to oppose them.
But such campaigning does not win on its own; we needed industrial action as well. To RMT's credit, it organised this as an all-grades dispute from the beginning; there was a firm feeling that station staff would not be left to fight alone. The more moderate TSSA decided to join RMT in taking industrial action - the first time it had taken strike action on the Underground since the 1926 general strike. This gave people a real confidence boost. But TSSA only balloted its station staff members - others, such as revenue control, engineers and service control, were not included, and consequently worked during the strikes. Drivers-only union ASLEF refused to join the dispute, despite acknowledging that station staffing cuts adversely affect drivers.
The first major hurdle in the dispute was the length of time it took to get a ballot going after the cuts were announced. A legal ruling the previous December during a dispute on EDF Powerlink meant that unions were now required to provide the exact grade titles and work locations of everyone being balloted, which meant the union had to significantly update its membership records. However, while this was undoubtedly an anti-union and onerous ruling, the unions should not have taken so long to update the records and organise the ballot; the unions did not ballot until July, by which time people had started talking about 'when' the cuts were coming in rather than 'if'.
Eventually having a good majority in the ballot, RMT and TSSA jointly announced four 24-hour strikes at four-week intervals from early September, with 'action short of strikes' as well - an indefinite overtime ban, and later, a boycott of LU's policy of a £5 minimum Oyster top-up, a ban on higher grade working, and a work-to-rule for the engineering grades.
The use of action short of a strike was good, but in retrospect the overtime ban should have been for a definite period. No-one knows what to do with it now as it is losing strength in the workplace but people realise that calling it off would look like another surrender. And for the other forms of 'action short', we needed reps and activists supporting members in every workplace, including with materials that they could show managers who threatened them with discipline that their action was protected by a legal mandate.
The strikes should have been for longer than 24 hours from the start. We should know by now that 24 hours are not enough to put pressure on the bosses. Managers and scabs work 24-hour shifts on strike days then go home to sleep it off for two days. If we strike for two or three days at a time, they can not do that; even with industrial quantities of amphetamines, the most enthusiastic scab in the world can not work a 72-hour shift.
The four strikes got stronger each time, with solid participation from RMT and TSSA members, many more picket lines than in previous disputes, and significant unofficial participation from rank-and-file ASLEF members. Their increasing strength surprised some more pessimistic union officials and reps, and had management under real pressure. As the old saying goes, when you have management by the short and curlies, you don't let go. After the four one-day strikes, the unions should have stepped up the action. But they did the opposite. Instead of calling new, longer strikes before Christmas and into the New Year, with strike pay to help people cope with the financial pressure, the leaderships announced to the press that there would be a truce over Christmas, despite having no democratic mandate to do so. And in any case, a 'truce' would mean both sides laying down their weapons. In fact, while the unions stopped striking, London Underground pressed ahead with cutting the jobs.
When the strikes stopped, the unions went quiet. They did not explain to members properly why they had called no more strikes, nor why they changed some of the action short. Talks eventually restarted, but members felt that they were being left in the dark, which led to a loss of momentum and confidence.
The majority of reps and branches wanted a further, 48-hour strike before the implementation date, but TSSA and RMT's Executive decided against doing this. They had, in effect, given up more than two months before the cuts were due to come in, then rejected an opportunity to put that right and reassert pressure on the company. The two unions working together had initially been a source of strength in the dispute, but towards the end became a pretext for inaction, as one would not act without the other. Rank-and-file members felt that the unions had marched them up the hill only to march them down again, and there is now widespread demoralisation.
There are already lots of incidents occurring on stations due to low staffing levels. There was recently a fight on a train at Bermondsey and there were not enough staff around to deal with it. The staff member had to leave the gateline to assist, so the gateline had to be left open and passengers continued to stream through while the fight spilled out onto the platform. A member of staff was threatened with a glass bottle. Eventually the police had to be called. In other incident, disabled passengers have been left to get around stations because there are no staff available.
The unions can use these stories in the press and in the ongoing talks with management – but without effective industrial action, the effect will be limited. The unions are engaged in ongoing 'reviews' of the job cuts, but while reps are running rings round management in these talks, without industrial action they are unlikely to come to much.
Those within the unions who opposed striking again before implementation argued that if the talks do not lead to the restoration of a significant number of jobs, the unions could then call more strikes. But Workers' Liberty members and others argued that this was not a credible strategy as by the end of the reviews, the new rosters would be established and members demoralised. There is some feeling now that everything is over and done with. But you can not approach workplace struggles in that way: you have to look for the possibilities for a new fight.
Fundamentally what the dispute needed was more rank-and-file control – more democratic forums where ordinary members could not only give their opinion about where the dispute was going but have a direct stake in its direction. We also need stronger workplace organisation to support members through protracted disputes like this. And ultimately, we need one all-grades union on the underground where different grades stick by each other.
"These staffing cuts are disastrous for both workers and passengers. There were a lot of positives in the union's attempt to stop them - the ever-stronger series of strikes, all grades and both unions acting together, public campaigning, and more. But we have not stopped this round of job cuts, because London Underground management dug in under instruction from their political masters. There are lessons for the unions to learn, and better ways to do things in future disputes. We can be sure that this is not the end of job cuts from London Underground or other employers: workers and our unions will fight every attack, and must do so more effectively." - Janine Booth, London Transport representative, RMT Council of Executives (personal capacity)
