RMT on a "war footing" to threaten a national strike

[greyman42]

The thing for the Unions to deal with is to ensure voluntary packages are good including early retirement, and that as few compulsory redundancies as possible are carried out, ideally none.

Yes, that is what would happen in any other industry/sector.

I think you’ll find most people who despise the RMT despise ASLEF too!

I find that the RMT has a much worse reputation than ASLEF.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Roads. The new Minister for Climate Change has 'paused' all major road projects.

That's slightly different, as it's capital spend, similar to SW Metro building costs.
The railway costs we are talking about (service levels, number of trains leased and consequent staffing) are current costs, more like teachers' and nurses' pay costs, or maintenance of roads.

 

[Goldfish62]

Yes, that is what would happen in any other industry/sector.

Yes, but Railway exceptionalism is at work here so the usual norms don't apply.

 

[Falcon1200]

Glad to see the RMT taking action, it's clear the government are hoping to sneak through cuts on a large scale under Covid and GBR and if they're to have any impact at all now is the time.

Given the media profile (favourable or not) of, and general public interest in, our railways, in what universe could the Government ever hope to 'sneak through cuts on a large scale', under Covid or anything else ?

What typically happens in the signalling grade is that a new starter comes in and doesn’t join the union because they believe the media image that all RMT members are rabid card carrying ‘power to the workers’ communists out to cause anarchy, even though they’re happy to take the pay award and conditions that the union negotiated over the years.

I joined the Union (in my case the TSSA) the same day I joined the railway, although I didn't actually have any choice as BR was at that time a closed shop, and remained a member throughout my career, mainly for the reasons mentioned; Assistance in case of discipline (fortunately never required) and because they negotiated my pay and conditions. However I left the day I retired, having become increasingly unhappy with certain aspects, eg telling me how to vote in elections, and, absurdly, decrying every fare increase while demanding annual pay rises. But I advised anyone I worked with to join the, or a, Union.

 

[Goldfish62]

Welsh Labour is not a stand alone political party, it is a sub-division of the UK Labour party. Therefore the RMT cannot directly donate to Welsh Labour, any donations they make would go straight to the UK Labour party, who then distribute funds across the party in England, Scotland and Wales.

And the RMT is not affiliated to the Labour Party in any case. Labour could never be left wing enough for it.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I wonder if a sense of humour exists on this website......

I can just imagine of a "fantasy situation" arising now that the RMT have declared themselves to be on a "war footing" and the RMT refusing to move from such a stated position. After days of fruitless attempts to resolve the threatened impasse, the Prime Minister will make the following televised and radio broadcast to the nation.....

"This morning, the Secretary of State for Transport handed a note addressed to the National Executive of the RMT a final note to say that unless we heard by 11 o'clock from the RMT that they were prepared to withdraw from their stated "war footing" position, that a State of War would exist between the RMT and HM Government.

I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received and consequently, this country is now at war with the RMT."

I must confess to having a fertile imagination in which such a broadcast being made, followed by a chosen group of special forces making an assault on the RMT head office. Well, no harm in dreaming!!!

 

[75A]

I joined the Union (in my case the TSSA) the same day I joined the railway, although I didn't actually have any choice as BR was at that time a closed shop, and remained a member throughout my career, mainly for the reasons mentioned; Assistance in case of discipline (fortunately never required) and because they negotiated my pay and conditions. However I left the day I retired, having become increasingly unhappy with certain aspects, eg telling me how to vote in elections, and, absurdly, decrying every fare increase while demanding annual pay rises. But I advised anyone I worked with to join the, or a, Union.

I joined the NUR when I started working for British Rail in 1979 and from my Seniority Date of 4/2/80 left them and joined ASLEF, absolutely no regrets being a Buxton Boy.

 

[Jozhua]

Unfortunately I just see a lot of bad faith arguments around this sort of stuff, so I don't see a solution being reached anytime soon.

Sure railways are subsidised, as are roads, schools, healthcare, policing, fire brigade - we accept subsidies for these things because they provide a public good. Lack of access to high quality transportation is very obviously a major barrier to economic success for many parts of the country. The railways provide the lowest carbon emissions of any form of non-active travel, considering transport makes up the largest share of the UK's carbon emissions, they will prove crucial for our fight against climate change.

On the other hand, there is a lot of stagnant thinking in the industry. Firstly we have modern working practices such as DOO, which already provides tens of thousands of safe services across the country every day. The current government doesn't help itself - what if we planned to run more service with the existing staff?

Secondly there is an obsession with suburban residents commuting to city centre offices. The actual percentage of journeys that fit into this category is rather small, but these people have the biggest weight politically. Very observably, the most successful public transport services throughout the pandemic cater mostly to other people outside this category - think regional railway services and urban tram systems. NET is already noticeably at or over capacity, with Metrolink being fairly similar. Railway services taking working families on weekend trips to popular destinations have been rammed over the summer holidays!

This ultimately cuts to the core of the issue - politicians and railway bosses have focused on the typically middle/upper class, typically white, typically male, business travellers who they are able to drain for every penny in a grasp to claw subsidies back. When the pandemic hit, these were some of the first people to leave the railways and, facing fares now higher than ever before, many are making the decision not to come back.

The most resilient services have been some of the most forgotten and some of the most under-invested in. Unfortunately, I worry the cuts will hurt these more than anything else. The home counties will likely see the least hit (although I'm sure the areas too poor to have political influence will still feel the pinch)

We could take the opportunity to build a railway that truly serves the UK - let's build more services like the London Overground, Manchester Metrolink and offer railway staff gainful employment delivering these new projects while the railways and wilder economy recover from the pandemic. But the useless oafs in government have no imagination and are driven by dogmatic ideology that despite continually getting proven wrong, they continue to blindly follow anyway...

Edit:
Also during this shortage of truck drivers, the extra rail capacity could prove super handy for getting our supply chains moving again. Grab some leftover locos (trust me, there are a ton of class 66's) and start moving some freight!

 

[krus_aragon]

Welsh Labour is not a stand alone political party, it is a sub-division of the UK Labour party. Therefore the RMT cannot directly donate to Welsh Labour, any donations they make would go straight to the UK Labour party, who then distribute funds across the party in England, Scotland and Wales.

Welsh Labour appear to be soliciting donations on their website

However the "terms and conditions" link at the bottom of that page leads to the central UK Labour party's website. Said terms and conditions don't make explicit reference to Welsh Labour donations anywhere.

There is certainly political distance maintained between the UK and Welsh branches of the party, but I suspect the machinations behind the scenes are still rather integrated.

 

[Tomnick]

One wonders what sort of service could be run utilising automatic route setting, management and non RMT members.

Hopefully very little. It might be okay in routine operation, but when things go wrong, we all rely on properly staffed workstations/panels for the correct emergency actions to be taken and for degraded working to be properly implemented. I certainly wouldn't be happy driving a train knowing that ARS was setting routes but otherwise no-one was supervising the operation.

 

[Darandio]

Also during this shortage of truck drivers, the extra rail capacity could prove super handy for getting our supply chains moving again. Grab some leftover locos (trust me, there are a ton of class 66's) and start moving some freight!

Whilst using rail to move large volumes of freight would be great, the fact there is a huge shortage of HGV drivers still has an impact at either end of the route.

 

[Jozhua]

Whilst using rail to move large volumes of freight would be great, the fact there is a huge shortage of HGV drivers still has an impact at either end of the route.

It would make sense for long distance and stuff coming from Europe - the channel tunnel likely has TONS of capacity these days with reduced Eurostar/Eurotunnel service. I bet some of the staff running Eurotunnel car services could easily start moving freight through the chunnel, especially if they used the same locos. Potentially could even employ furloughed Eurostar drivers!

 

[Class 170101]

Whilst using rail to move large volumes of freight would be great, the fact there is a huge shortage of HGV drivers still has an impact at either end of the route.

True but shorter distances with truckers moving stuff locally means more trips with the limited number of truckers you have.

However a national rail strike with signallers on strike means no containers moving by rail regardless of distance.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I've no time for RMT and don't believe they are helping the wider cause of getting the industry back on its feet either with this approach. However, the Dept of T isn't helping matters either with a lack of clear direction for the industry and what it wants. Currently no one knows how traffic levels are going to play out so it makes eminent sense to reduce all controllable costs which I would have thought is largely overtime, rest day working etc. Also the Dept of T should be instructing operators not to remove capability be that drivers support staff, rolling stock and agreed 2019 train paths until there is absolute clarity about what it wants from each operator and that will take the creation of GBR. However, what seems a lot more certain, as it was already happening, is the high peak is likely no more but that traffic will spread out into the shoulders. Everyone knows that the peak is hugely expensive to both run and keep reliable so this a positive for the industry that can be exploited in the long run. Furthermore on many threads across this forum we here time and time again depots that can't cover the work without RDW even though number of services has been reduced so this is an opportunity to sort this out. Then we have SWR and Scotrail trailing service cutbacks at the same time as LNER was expanding its services albeit now uncertain. Other operators are silent on any long term plans so it all sounds very disjointed to me.

The dept of T would do well to engage with the unions across the board and operators to set out its stall and endeavour to carry people along rather than giving the RMT opportunity to cause chaos because its second guessing what it thinks is going on.

 

[O L Leigh]

I wonder if a sense of humour exists on this website......

I can just imagine of a "fantasy situation" arising now that the RMT have declared themselves to be on a "war footing" and the RMT refusing to move from such a stated position. After days of fruitless attempts to resolve the threatened impasse, the Prime Minister will make the following televised and radio broadcast to the nation.....

"This morning, the Secretary of State for Transport handed a note addressed to the National Executive of the RMT a final note to say that unless we heard by 11 o'clock from the RMT that they were prepared to withdraw from their stated "war footing" position, that a State of War would exist between the RMT and HM Government.

I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received and consequently, this country is now at war with the RMT."

I must confess to having a fertile imagination in which such a broadcast being made, followed by a chosen group of special forces making an assault on the RMT head office. Well, no harm in dreaming!!!

…only to have the battle-hardened crack troops of the RMT sweep unopposed across the open countryside, outflanking the entrenched defences and overwhelming the inadequately equipped and poorly led Government forces before swiftly pushing them back into the sea.

[/levity]

 

[Dryce]

The pandemic restrictions are just lifting and now quite a few office staff are being told to go back to their workplaces, I know this as a fact from people being told from September it back to normal.

Quite a few people coming back in.

But. Not all. And for those coming back - not 5 days a week.

Nobody I know working in large offices in public or private sector are going back to anything like pre-covid daily attendance at the office.

 

[BayPaul]

And for those coming back - not 5 days a week.

This could well make the peak even more awkward and expensive to manage, as it's likely to become a 3 day, rather than 5 day, concentration of traffic

 

[Dai Corner]

This could well make the peak even more awkward and expensive to manage, as it's likely to become a 3 day, rather than 5 day, concentration of traffic

They won't all be working the same three days, will they?

 

[BayPaul]

They won't all be working the same three days, will they?

I think most people, given the option, would work tue, wed and thur. Wednesday in particular will probably be the busiest.

 

[Goldfish62]

They won't all be working the same three days, will they?

That would be madness. Companies are using the situation as an opportunity to get rid of office space. Having everyone turn up at once would be impossible to accommodate. Where a friend of mine works at a large central employer they are basically being told which days they will be permitted to work from home. They have no choice in the matter and the days are spread throughout the week.

 

[hwl]

I think most people, given the option, would work tue, wed and thur. Wednesday in particular will probably be the busiest.

That is the expectation, Fridays were already noticeably quieter pre-Covid.

Currently meetings tend to be more focused on Tuesday - Thursday.

Where a friend of mine works at a large central employer they are basically being told which days they will be permitted to work from home. They have no choice in the matter and the days are spread throughout the week.

Yep, my other half had this pre Covid as the office space was only big enough for 80% of employees and some were in the office 100% of days so many were only in 3 days a week beforehand.
However my other half is only going in on Wednesdays currently (and cycling in instead.)

 

[3rd rail land]

I think most people, given the option, would work tue, wed and thur. Wednesday in particular will probably be the busiest.

That's exactly why if I had to pick one day a week to work from home I would choose Wednesday.

That would be madness. Companies are using the situation as an opportunity to get rid of office space. Having everyone turn up at once would be impossible to accommodate. Where a friend of mine works at a large central employer they are basically being told which days they will be permitted to work from home. They have no choice in the matter and the days are spread throughout the week.

I see the logic but not giving staff a choice in their work from home days won't go down well. My employer allows staff to choose what days they go to the office, if indeed they go at all, by having people book a desk at least 24 hours in advance.
My employer has also been culling office space but this started pre pandemic however the pandemic caused an increased reduction in office space. WFH is extremely common with my employer.

 

[irish_rail]

Work from home will be tue to Thur . Very few employers will force workers to work the mon or fri. Its going to be a disaster.

 

[Goldfish62]

Work from home will be tue to Thur . Very few employers will force workers to work the mon or fri. Its going to be a disaster.

Oh yes they will, because they'll no longer have the office space to enable everyone to go into work on the same days.

A friend of mine has already been told told what days he will be required to attend the office and yes, one of them is Friday.

Employers are doing staff a favour allowing them to work from home so of course they're going to dictate when they can.

 

[Journeyman]

I think most people, given the option, would work tue, wed and thur. Wednesday in particular will probably be the busiest.

Absolutely. I suspect at the very least most people will consider having to work both Monday and Friday as being a very bad deal.

 

[3rd rail land]

Employers are doing staff a favour allowing them to work from home so of course they're going to dictate when they can.

Not necessarily. My employer usually hires staff from anywhere in the UK and just makes them 'remote workers' who work from home nearly 100% of the time and just visit an office or client site when required and claim travel expenses.
That way the talent pool isn't limited to people near enough to the office to commute regularly.

Not all work can be done remotely but the majority can be.

 

[dk1]

Absolutely. I suspect at the very least most people will consider having to work both Monday and Friday as being a very bad deal.

That’s been the case for many years now. Station car parks approximately 50% full Mondays & maybe 30% Fridays whereas often 80-100% Tuesday-Thursday.

 

[ExRes]

If the majority of people want a return to normal, so they claim, then that's exactly what we should be aiming for, a return to monday to friday working should be a priority and the Government ought to be using the railway as a way of achieving that

 

[Robertj21a]

If the majority of people want a return to normal, so they claim, then that's exactly what we should be aiming for, a return to monday to friday working should be a priority and the Government ought to be using the railway as a way of achieving that

It's not down to just the 'people', it will largely be determined by the employers - they will often prefer to have staff working from home (dependent on the nature of their business) so that the expensive working area can be downsized.

 

[philosopher]

Absolutely. I suspect at the very least most people will consider having to work both Monday and Friday as being a very bad deal.

If Friday is going to be a quiet as some claim it will be for commuting, then it could be argued Friday should be entirely off-peak. This would perhaps encourage some commuters back on the railways on Fridays.