Train Operating Company RMT members show determination to fight on
West Midlands RMT member
Despite some slight modifications as a result of our strike action, the employers’ proposals remain completely unacceptable.
The agenda remains to embark on a cost-cutting exercise, slashing costs through attacks on the jobs, pay and conditions of railway workers at the sharp end.
The heaviest burden will land on future railway employees, as the documents propose new starters will have worse annual leave and sick pay, among other items. Of course the mass closure of ticket offices will hit disabled and vulnerable people hardest, while decimating our members’ jobs.
Real inflation
The most recent pay offer is 5% for 2022 and an additional 4% for 2023, if the proposed cuts are accepted. However the cost-of-living crisis rumbles on. With real inflation still over 10% this offer falls way short of what is needed to preserve our spending power.
Our system of privatised railways is utterly dysfunctional, with private firms leeching billions of pounds in profits. First Group, one of the worst offenders, boasted to shareholders that the current franchising system poses “no revenue risk and very limited cost risk”. Workers are the ones who are expected to make sacrifices! That’s why we have to step up our demand for renationalisation of the railways and for political representatives who will fight for it.
The RMT rail union’s recent reballot result shows that members are up for the fight. RMT must take best advantage of this by launching a renewed campaign to rally members across the country, combined with a new programme of strike dates.
The leaderships of drivers’ union Aslef and RMT need to put any past differences aside and convene a special council of the national executives at a national leadership level to discuss and coordinate our campaigns for the maximum pressure on the employers and government for a decent settlement to the dispute.
The formation of committees of local and regional reps of both unions to discuss the dispute would be a step forward to making this happen.
This battle is about the future of the railway and the quality of the jobs of those employed on it.
Aslef members must take stock and plan how best to fight to win
West Midlands Aslef member
As we approach the one-year anniversary since the start of our national industrial action, we must take stock and discuss how to step up our fight.
Despite Aslef members being among the key workers who delivered vital transport throughout the pandemic, moving food, medicine and frontline workers across the country, we find ourselves on the receiving end of ‘reforms’ attacking our terms and conditions.
The Tory government sits behind the bosses of Train Operating Companies (TOCs) and Freight Operating Companies (FOCs), and time and again tries to poison public opinion against striking rail workers ‘holding the country to ransom’.
These are not the actions of a strong government, but of one desperate to prevent deals that could open up the floodgates even further to demands for better pay and conditions from wider groups of workers. They want to break the effectiveness of a union like Aslef, which has organised collective strength in the workplace and successful collective bargaining across an industry. The Tories have already let it slip in televised transport committee meetings it would have been cheaper to allow the individual TOCs and FOCs to settle the dispute themselves.
The initially leaked proposal from the bosses in the Rail Delivery Group of a 4% pay ‘rise’ over two years was a low-ball offer considering that real inflation is well over 10%. But the shopping list of strings attached, with the buzzwords ‘modernisation’ and ‘productivity’, including attacks on training structures and stepped increases in starting salaries, make this offer unacceptable.
Coordinate
Now more than ever we must fight to keep morale high amongst our members, to keep on fighting. That means mobilising the strength of our own members, but vitally planning and coordinating with the RMT rail union, which is also fighting on the TOCs. We must also coordinate with other unions across the labour movement to create a united front against common attacks and those leading those attacks.
We can take joy in our dispute outlasting two Tory prime ministers, but despite there being the mood among some of our members of ‘just having to outlast this government’, the lack of solidarity from Keir Starmer is a warning of whose side a government led by him will be on. He could add massive pressure onto the Tories and bosses now if he pledged inflation-proof pay rises and immediate renationalisation of the railways by a Labour government. That’s why as well as escalating and coordinating our action to bring this dispute to an end, we need to fight for a genuine working-class political voice.
Rail strikes
31 May – Aslef strike
1 June – Aslef overtime ban
2 June – RMT strike
3 June – Aslef strike
