Rail: escalating out of deadlock?

Rail and Tube workers started the current strike wave, back in March 2022 (Tube) and June 2022 (rail Train Operating Companies (TOCs) and Network Rail). A year later, the Tube and TOCs disputes are deadlocked, and Network Rail has settled on a bad deal, but workers remain determined to defy government-directed attempts to restructure jobs and worsen conditions.

Representatives in the RMT union (the main union in the industry and the only all-grades union) from the mainline Train Operating Companies (TOCs) in dispute over pay and conditions met on 14 June, with a strong consensus for resuming strikes at an intensified pace.

Rail workers last struck at the end of May and beginning of June, with drivers in Aslef striking on 31 May and 3 June, and RMT members striking on 2 June.

RMT’s dispute with the Rail Delivery Group, the umbrella body representing the TOCs, began with three days of strikes in June 2022. The dispute was run in parallel with a separate dispute involving RMT members at Network Rail, which ended in March when workers voted to accept a settlement. Although that deal improved on previous offers, it included a below-inflation pay “increase” and gave the employer leeway for cuts. RMT’s leadership made no recommendation in the referendum on the offer, allowing conservative elements who wanted a way out of the dispute to set the tone in many areas.

The latest offer from the RDG involves a two-year process, with a 5% pay settlement for the first year conditional on entering into a process in the second year for restructuring pay and conditions. The employers want to consolidate current job roles into a single “multi-skilled” grade on stations. They also want to overhaul policies on attendance, sick pay, rostering parameters and more.

Some in RMT now believe the most effective way to push for improvements would be to devolve the national dispute into a series of TOC-by-TOC campaigns. Although RMT is formally in dispute with multiple TOCs, the current dispute is effectively a consolidated campaign against the RDG, meaning any settlement will apply to workers across all affected TOCs. Advocates of this approach argue that the government is pushing the RDG’s cuts agenda, and that bosses of individual TOCs are not necessarily as enthusiastic about delivering it, meaning disputes or negotiations on a TOC-by-TOC basis could lead to settlements that include some protections for conditions.

United

Off the Rails, the rank-and-file rail workers’ blog and zine published by Workers’ Liberty rail workers, has argued against this approach. Although an orderly retreat into TOC-by-TOC talks may be something into which the union is eventually forced, whilst there is a prospect of maintaining a single, united, national dispute, the fight should continue at that level, aiming to force national concessions from the RDG via intensified action.

There is an ongoing debate amongst union activists about the most effective form of escalation. Many argue for an ongoing programme of strikes on Saturdays, on the basis that, with leisure travel having recovered to pre-pandemic levels in a way weekday commuter travel hasn’t, workers’ main leverage is at the weekend. However, whilst a programme of Saturday strikes would represent escalation of a sort, it is unlikely that striking for only one day a week, even on a sustained basis, will force major concessions. More likely it will see the dispute simmer down into an attritional deadlock, as happened in several of the RMT’s disputes against Driver Only Operation, where sustained Saturday strikes ultimately won little.

Off the Rails has argued for a programme of action that features Saturday strikes but also invovles sustained strikes during the week. A recent circular to members from the RMT general secretary reported, somewhat cryptically, that, following the 14 June reps’ meeting, the union’s National Executive Committee (NEC) would be discussing ways to “diversify” the industrial action.

More encouragingly, the circular reported plans for “a jointly agreed meeting with Aslef [a train drivers’ union, and the majority union among drivers] at national level, as soon as possible, to coordinate and work in solidarity.” Until now, relations between the two unions have appeared to consist of bilateral communication between the respective general secretaries’ offices, and little more. A joint meeting to discuss coordination, even if only at NEC level rather than anything closer to the workplace, would be a substantial step forward.

Aslef seemingly remains committed to consciously pursuing a low-heat, attritional strategy. Despite returning resounding votes for continued action across all TOCs in its latest re-ballots, it has called only a one-day strike on Avanti West Coast on 2 July, in a TOC-specific dispute over changes to sick pay arrangements, and an overtime ban on London North Eastern Railway from 1 July, also in a TOC-specific dispute.

Aslef’s GS Mick Whelan has acknowledged, in communications with members, that there are calls from within the union for escalation, and has implied that refusing to heed those calls is an indication of the “good faith” with which Aslef has approached negotiations with the RDG — good faith which has gone unrewarded.

Underground

On London Underground (LUL), both RMT and Aslef remain in dispute over attacks on terms and conditions, including pensions, and in RMT’s case over staffing levels on stations and in other areas. The two unions struck together for the first time on 15 March, with RMT having struck eight times in total since March 2022. Under pressure from an effective RMT overtime ban, LUL bosses have recently reopened negotiations on station staffing levels, having previously insisted the 600 jobs earmarked for deletion were gone for good. But the company continues to roll out cuts elsewhere, with a root-and-branch restructure of Tube drivers’ working conditions underway that could see shift times extended and open the door to a headcount reduction.

Transport for London, LUL’s parent company, is still determined to deliver the pension reform it promised the Tories as a condition for receiving funding bailouts during the pandemic. Its current plan is to move the existing TfL scheme into the Local Government Pension Scheme, which has much worse terms and could see TfL workers lose thousands of pounds in retirement. Meanwhile, separate but parallel disputes on LUL over pay are in the offing, with workers’ current pay settlement having expired in April 2023. The company’s latest offer is for a 4% increase, well below union demands.

In both the rail and Tube disputes, a strategy of sporadic action, usually only of 24 hours at a time and often with weeks or even months between strikes, has provably, verifiably failed to deliver gains for workers. The best that can be said for it is that it has slowed down employers bent on job cuts and restructures. But without an intensification of action to a level that could potentially force the employers back, that will only be a stay of execution. Step up the strikes!