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

[coppercapped]

The RMT represents a much greater number of workers than ASLEF. Also ASLEF have shown to be more willing to accept destaffing of trains (DOO) etc. in return for pay rises. I hardly think ASLEF's "give our drivers some more pay and we'll keep quiet" approach is something to be commended.

If you are concerned about the lack of inter-union cooperation then maybe the time has come again to promote the concept of a Grand National Consolidated Trades Union...

 

[A0wen]

Without speaking for all Unions, I have found that my Unions election system to be pretty corrupt and not fit for purpose.

Which was precisely the kind of thing Chapple sorted out in the ETU as it was then. Knowing there was Communist vote rigging, Chapple and Les Cannon took the result to the High Court and won, they then purged the communists from the ETU and ensured proper free and fair elections for the ETU's leadership. Other unions declined to follow, which is a shame because handing power to the members and ensuring members are properly engaged is surely one of a union's objectives?

 

[Goldfish62]

As people mention, very regularly, any RMT members unhappy with their leaders need to do something about it themselves. Nobody else can change the top tier.

Most members obviously are happy because they keep voting for action with some regularity!

 

[3rd rail land]

Indeed - and I'm sure that employers will in time realise that "remotely" includes other parts of the world where labour is cheaper.

In my industry, IT, things can and do get outsourced overseas. Primarily India. That said it is happening less and less due to things like language barriers and time zone differences amongst others.

My employer doesn't outsource at all. A large majority of our work is government contracts for which the work has to be carried out onshore, i.e within the UK. I am 100% confident in saying my job is safe and will never go overseas.

 

[Highlandspring]

As people mention, very regularly, any RMT members unhappy with their leaders need to do something about it themselves. Nobody else can change the top tier.

That’s very much easier said than done, unfortunately.

 

[Dai Corner]

That’s very much easier said than done, unfortunately.

I believe fewer than 20% of members voted in the last election for General Secretary.

 

[Cardiff123]

That’s very much easier said than done, unfortunately.

How difficult is it to vote in RMT elections then? I assume it's possible to vote online? Even returning a postal vote is not difficult. If enough of the sensible, moderate membership voted, it can be done.

 

[Goldfish62]

I believe fewer than 20% of members voted in the last election for General Secretary.

And less than 10% voted in the recent Unite GS election.

 

[Swanley 59]

Local management for us (IT at a public sector employer) has decreed that Monday is the one day of the week were working on-site is mandatory for the whole team. Under our "agile" working scheme, we are free to choose which 2 days from Tue - Fri we can WFH - as long as there is at least half the team on-site. With annual leave and other absences, this often translates into 4 or 5 days on-site per week.

Being on-site does not guarantee a desk as office capacity has been cut from 40 to 16 desks in an open plan office shared by 5 different teams. Oddly enough, the desk booking system cannot cope with the flawed maths.

The worst of it, from my point of view, is that instead of taking the train, as I did pre-Covid, the irregular travel patterns have made the car the default choice - even though I know I'm doing double the mileage than stated in the PCP contract.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Being on-site does not guarantee a desk as office capacity has been cut from 40 to 16 desks in an open plan office shared by 5 different teams

I have, in the past, got very shirty indeed with the management of an employer who did that to me. If you want me on site you guarantee me a desk, either by there being enough, or by way of pre-booking but no expectation to be on site if one isn't bookable for that day. If you don't guarantee me a desk, I don't work on site unless it's a very short term one-off. A proper adjustable working environment is seen as required by H&S law for all-day computer work. Not sitting on a non-adjustable chair on a meeting room table.

The outcome of me getting shirty about it was an end to the requirement to be on site.

My current employer has a booking system (and a relaxed policy) to avoid this happening.

 

[alangla]

The worst of it, from my point of view, is that instead of taking the train, as I did pre-Covid, the irregular travel patterns have made the car the default choice - even though I know I'm doing double the mileage than stated in the PCP contract.

I’m changing route when I go back to the office. I’ve got a choice of two, both involving about the same amount of walking. One has just had flexipasses introduced, the other hasn’t and I’ve no intention of paying the astronomical peak fare for 2-3 days a week initially. If I go back to 5 days eventually I might change back.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Looking at political party views, Lisa Nandy who holds high Shadow ministerial office in the Labour Party has been something of a fixture on TV news channels of late, making comments as to how the Labour Party would handle matters affecting the economy far better than the Conservative Party on any matter she was asked about by a presenter. It reminded me of the song "Anything you can do, I can do better". Why has she missed out on the opportunity to appear on TV to give her forthright views on the damage that could be caused to the country by the threatened proposed action of the RMT, when the country is still affected eighteen months into the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

[Starmill]

Looking at political party views, Lisa Nandy who holds high Shadow ministerial office in the Labour Party has been something of a fixture on TV news channels of late, making comments as to how the Labour Party would handle matters affecting the economy far better than the Conservative Party on any matter she was asked about by a presenter. It reminded me of the song "Anything you can do, I can do better". Why has she missed out on the opportunity to appear on TV to give her forthright views on the damage that could be caused to the country by the threatened proposed action of the RMT, when the country is still affected eighteen months into the Covid-19 pandemic.

The low level of rail usage, and the even lower level of work and business rail usage, means that any railway strike will have even less effect on the national economy now than before, and the effect before wasn't exactly large given most people weren't frequent rail users.

The main effect of a railway strike will be upon... the railway. Nearly everyone else will be able to work around it. The Shadow Foreign Secretary has rather more important things to be seen commenting on currently.

 

[Robertj21a]

The low level of rail usage, and the even lower level of work and business rail usage, means that any railway strike will have even less effect on the national economy now than before, and the effect before wasn't exactly large given most people weren't frequent rail users.

The main effect of a railway strike will be upon... the railway. Nearly everyone else will be able to work around it. The Shadow Foreign Secretary has rather more important things to be seen commenting on currently.

Very true !

 

[Swanley 59]

I have, in the past, got very shirty indeed with the management of an employer who did that to me. If you want me on site you guarantee me a desk, either by there being enough, or by way of pre-booking but no expectation to be on site if one isn't bookable for that day. If you don't guarantee me a desk, I don't work on site unless it's a very short term one-off. A proper adjustable working environment is seen as required by H&S law for all-day computer work. Not sitting on a non-adjustable chair on a meeting room table.

That battle is coming... I really don't think that the proponents of our "agile" working scheme have fully thought it through. All I can say is that I'm glad I'm a union member, albeit the only one in the team.

I’m changing route when I go back to the office. I’ve got a choice of two, both involving about the same amount of walking. One has just had flexipasses introduced, the other hasn’t and I’ve no intention of paying the astronomical peak fare for 2-3 days a week initially. If I go back to 5 days eventually I might change back.

The flexi-season only makes sense if I'm doing only 2 days a week. Sadly, the monthly season is a lot more than 3 anytime returns a week. The economics of train travel have ceased to work for me. But, like you, if I go back to 5 days, then I might become a regular traveller again.

 

[Kite159]

Looking at political party views, Lisa Nandy who holds high Shadow ministerial office in the Labour Party has been something of a fixture on TV news channels of late, making comments as to how the Labour Party would handle matters affecting the economy far better than the Conservative Party on any matter she was asked about by a presenter. It reminded me of the song "Anything you can do, I can do better". Why has she missed out on the opportunity to appear on TV to give her forthright views on the damage that could be caused to the country by the threatened proposed action of the RMT, when the country is still affected eighteen months into the Covid-19 pandemic.

Is it the usual "We will do it better" without actually going into details of what they will do to make it better?

(Or come up with an idiotic suggestion which might sound great in the labour bubble of Islington but in the real world goes down like a lead balloon)

 

[AGH]

I'm currently working back full time in the office albeit only one of 20 in an office previously occupied by 200. If the RMT call a strike, I just work from home. The irony is that any strike is likely to affect key workers most rather than office commuters who have a lot more flexibility now. I'd suggest as has been mentioned this approach is very much self defeating and very bad PR.

 

[Jozhua]

That is a misunderstanding of how the railways are funded.
The money that is used to subsidise services in the North, comes from profitable commuter ToCs like SWR, GTR and C2C (the intercity and Thames Valley part of GWR cross subsidises the South West services to a degree also).
If the revenue from these ToCs is reduced then there is less money to go round for Northern rail etc. So service cuts will be widespread across the country.

No, the money paid back goes straight into treasury coffers and then the treasury divvies out subsidies to the local operators direct from the coffers. - There is no reason this money cannot be provided for a number of years to come - Furlough, Track and Trace, etc all cost significantly more than seeing the railways through just a few more months at the end of the pandemic will.

Using this argument to justify service cuts in places where passenger growth has been higher is absolutely ridiculous. In fact cuts are ridiculous right now when by the time they have been implemented (October) we can expect the landscape to be significantly different - my company wants 5 day a week office working again by then. Yet another short sighted move that will come back to bite us in a year. - Remember we're still recovering from the crisis, confidence is low, this is not the time to start making un-recoverable changes based on perceptions of what might happen.

Also worth pointing out that cutting services probably won't save much money. You're still paying ROSCOs for the same number of trains, infrastructure must still be maintained, stations must be staffed, trains must be cleaned - each service cut will not have a corresponding saving in costs, but will have an impact on the number of people choosing to travel by train. Cutting service during the pandemic was primarily there to reduce the number of staff at risk of infection and increase the resiliency with a reduced number of staff potentially available due to isolation and sickness - (most staff ended up on furlough anyway...)

This blog post has some interesting points on this - a 20% reduction in service is likely to equal approximately a 10% reduction in operating costs:

Rail 927: Cutting costs on the railways is not easy – Christian Wolmar

The whole thing really is an exercise in bean-counting, one that will really have a trivial impact on expenditure when all is said and done. Finding £2bn a year in operational savings is easy long term - invest in electrification and see your maintenance/fuel costs slashed, implement DOO more widely with guards focusing on revenue collection, and modernise legacy signalling systems that have large staff/maintenance requirements. All of these have the benefit of a better passenger experience too.

Capital projects aren't opex, but they could be managed significantly better, figures pointing to being able to reduce them by at least 30% with competent long term planning - likely more with good system specification and contractual negotiation methods (e.g. giving contractors bonuses VS punishing them for late work). Every time a project like HS2 goes for re-design to try and reduce costs, the price goes up by 10%... that's what supply chain uncertainty will do to you...

Let's also compare the costs of cutting now Vs waiting another year to be GENUINELY out of pandemic mode (remember many have received their last jab in only the past month, especially many of the younger office workers based in places like London). We cut services by 20%, which saves us 10% in opex, but conservatively reduces passenger numbers by at least around 5% (likely more). So now we've saved something like 5% in Opex. - Rail bosses haven't even agreed to cut jobs until the end of 2021, so no savings besides fuel until 2022 at the earliest!

Now in a year, say passengers with no other option are rammed on like sardines and the industry has to scramble to ramp up again. Now they have to hire new staff in the midst of a labour shortage, train them from the ground up and deal with reduced productivity while they learn, very likely on higher wages than the staff they replaced. This is really all starting to look like a bit of a farce, compared to just waiting until next year, seeing how the situation is then and making a long term judgement on service changes to be gradually implemented over a number of years to create a network better optimised for post Covid travel patterns...

 

[Mag_seven]

OK folks I think we are done here for the moment.

If there are any further developments in this story (such as a strike ballot for example) then please feel free to contact a member of forum staff and we will look to have the thread reopened.