RMT rejects latest offer from both Network Rail and RDG (TOCs)

[Snow1964]

I’m an Aslef member but I know that Mick Lynch has attended several very large meetings with as many members as possible in attendance. On my area there were 4 TOCS in attendance and the overall outcome was to reject the offer.

The sort of people that attend these meetings tend to be from the more hard line end of the membership. I suspect the meeting attendees are not that representative of whole membership.

 

[yorksrob]

If it were my Union (and I am a member of a union, albeit not a railway one) I would want the offer to be put to a vote at this stage.

 

[Tetchytyke]

It’s fairly clear from the latest RMT comms that they are not interested in negotiations. And that suggests the last year has been a waste of time, and of course a huge waste of money for those who have been on strike

An interesting take.

It is obvious that RDG and Network Rail are acting in bad faith by putting in conditions that they know fine well will be unacceptable to the unions and their members. So what is there to negotiate? The employers know the red lines, and they keep crossing them with their offers.

The unions can't negotiate with employers who are not acting in good faith.

 

[Bletchleyite]

My major frustration with the company is that there are maintenance people who have been with the company for decades that are now having new contracts with new Ts&Cs imposed upon them. If the company can do that to whatever proportion of the company maintenance is, why can't they do it to anyone, including signallers? Like P&O. That's why I personally will continue to strike because I think it sets a really bad precedent that the company can rip up contracts when it suits. When I went to the union branch meeting a week last Tuesday there were maintenance people on the brink of tears that I had to console. We can't allow them to be lambs to the slaughter. We have to defend them because if the company turns on us, who will be there to defend us?

Sympathetic striking is illegal. I'd delete that post if I were you. If you do report this one and ask the mods to delete it.

An interesting take.

It is obvious that RDG and Network Rail are acting in bad faith by putting in conditions that they know fine well will be unacceptable to the unions and their members. So what is there to negotiate? The employers know the red lines, and they keep crossing them with their offers.

The unions can't negotiate with employers who are not acting in good faith.

While there are things in the latest offer which might cause me to vote against the offer, though I forget what it was it was discussed on the other thread, I don't think the current offer is in bad faith at all. Blanket DOO was though.

 

[SJN]

The sort of people that attend these meetings tend to be from the more hard line end of the membership. I suspect the meeting attendees are not that representative of whole membership.

What do you mean by ‘these meetings’? People who never go to branch meetings attended. It wasn’t a branch meeting, it was a general RMT attended by as many RMT members from all branches and TOC’s or otherwise who wished to go in my area. The place was full and the majority wanted to reject the offer.

 

[Timetraveller]

Exactly, starts with less maintenence and station grades staff. Then less trains and route closures will follow resulting in less signallers and drivers needed. Its a control thing. Less trains, less cars on the road as people won't be able to afford the fuel prices. Less planes as people won't be able to afford to travel. Bring back the horse and cart to fet around.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Yes but the members who are no longer in the union will be paid when they show up to work on a strike day. The more people who show up to work increases the chances of them able to run some sort of service on strike days.

It wont as they will have no idea how many people are going to show up in advance to plan anything. Actually could worsen the situation as even more cost going out the door with no income.

The reality is Tories aint going to move so thus this will run for 18mths potentially and then they expect Labour to deal with it who will have their hands full with the rest of the chaos. The deeper issue is the damage it does to ridership and thus revenue and potentially will lead to forced staff cuts when the employer side ne DfT loses patience.

 

[Tetchytyke]

If it were my Union (and I am a member of a union, albeit not a railway one) I would want the offer to be put to a vote at this stage.

That's clearly the employers' tactic, keep putting forward the same rubbish offer until the employees get ground down and run out of steam. A negotiating tactic which can only be used where the taxpayer is being forced into bankrolling the losses, which the government freely admits already exceeds the cost of actually settling.

I find it fascinating how people are blaming the unions when it is abundantly clear that the employers are simply not acting in good faith and have no intention of doing so because someone else is footing the bill. And our government, a Margaret Thatcher pub tribute act, are happy to spaff away taxpayer money to make an ideological point.

The RMT should change their name to Serco or Michelle Mone, they'd get everything they want then!

 

[Bletchleyite]

That's clearly the employers' tactic, keep putting forward the same rubbish offer until the employees get ground down and run out of steam.

Maybe so, but that's for the members to decide. The right thing to do would be to put it to a vote, even if they recommend against it.

There should be a legal requirement for all formal offers to be put to a vote, so as to avoid decisions being taken for the wrong reasons.

 

[JoeyB]

The sort of people that attend these meetings tend to be from the more hard line end of the membership. I suspect the meeting attendees are not that representative of whole membership.

Exactly this. I suspect the most hard line attend the meetings and only the loudest voices are heard. Plenty can't attend because they are working anyway.

Some reps haven't even made contact with those the represent to get an opinion.

 

[eldomtom2]

Sympathetic striking is illegal. I'd delete that post if I were you. If you do report this one and ask the mods to delete it.

I am fairly certain it is only illegal to strike if it is against a company you are not employed by. IIRC there have been recent strikes on the Underground caused by what the union felt to be a unjust firing, which under your definition would be illegal.

 

[bramling]

If it was no strings percentage increase it would be accepted no doubt. Government/RDG need to stop playing games with “reforms”, especially as half the problem with train unreliability is their daft management anyway not the workers.

Agreed. I’m sick of the sheer arrogance of this government / crop of politicians who have screwed up pretty much *everything* they have touched in every facet of life, yet seem to think it’s their prerogative to interfere.

I just can’t wait til the vote begging bowl comes out further down the line.

 

[bazzarati]

I am fairly certain it is only illegal to strike if it is against a company you are not employed by. IIRC there have been recent strikes on the Underground caused by what the union felt to be a unjust firing, which under your definition would be illegal.

Indeed. Also happened at the ROC at Didcot, I believe, last year with signallers striking independent of the national dispute.

 

[Tetchytyke]

There should be a legal requirement for all formal offers to be put to a vote, so as to avoid decisions being taken for the wrong reasons.

Sounds like a great way of slowing any decision making down to a crawl, timing out any strike mandate. Death by plebiscite. Tie the union up constantly voting on a cheap re-tread of the last bad faith offer.

 

[Timetraveller]

For my grade its literally a no strings pay offer!

Thought rpi's will be part of station groups and not as onboard crew and therefore have a possibility of split shifts, 7 day working and Bank Holidays to be considered as normal working days.

 

[SJN]

Exactly this. I suspect the most hard line attend the meetings and only the loudest voices are heard. Plenty can't attend because they are working anyway.

Some reps haven't even made contact with those the represent to get an opinion.

All reps will put details of any meetings on the notice board. Members can also email them directly if they can’t attend. You also suspect wrongly about the people attending the meeting. Many people who went are not hard line at all and everyone got a chance to speak from what I’ve been told about it. I was in the RMT before I joined Aslef and have plenty of friends and colleagues who are members and many of them have discussed the meeting with me.

 

[Trothy]

If it were my Union (and I am a member of a union, albeit not a railway one) I would want the offer to be put to a vote at this stage.

From a NR standpoint - The previous offer was put to a vote and rejected 2 to 1.

This offer was so similar that they asked the membership if they felt it justified another referendum. I couldn't make the short notice branch meeting but did email my local rep with my thoughts.

It seems the overwhelming feedback delivered from the membership was that the offer was too similar to the previous deal and should be rejected. Which is what has happened.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

That's clearly the employers' tactic, keep putting forward the same rubbish offer until the employees get ground down and run out of steam. A negotiating tactic which can only be used where the taxpayer is being forced into bankrolling the losses, which the government freely admits already exceeds the cost of actually settling.

I find it fascinating how people are blaming the unions when it is abundantly clear that the employers are simply not acting in good faith and have no intention of doing so because someone else is footing the bill. And our government, a Margaret Thatcher pub tribute act, are happy to spaff away taxpayer money to make an ideological point.

The stark reality is expenditure exceeds income by a large margin. Firstly for sure though a bit of stability would see some closure of that deficit but its never going to be enough to get back to 2019 levels. Secondly whatever we believe on here the Treasury isn't saying eliminate the defecit and is prepared to provide additional support to the industry. Thirdly though there has to be a contribution from the industry to lower its cost base and we are seeing that with service reductions, less leased stock, NR management reductions, but as we all know staff costs are the biggest element of the industry so something is necessary and historically the industry has met that challenge but seemingly not at the moment. The unions need to be asked about what their solution is to this dilemma so the industry is protected and thus the roles of its members within it.

 

[RPI]

Thought rpi's will be part of station groups and not as onboard crew and therefore have a possibility of split shifts, 7 day working and Bank Holidays to be considered as normal working days.

On GWR we come under on board, bank Holidays already normal working days as per nearly every other grade in GWR, Sundays outside the week so would come under the new committed overtime but I work plenty anyway.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Sounds like a great way of slowing any decision making down to a crawl, timing out any strike mandate. Death by plebiscite. Tie the union up constantly voting on a cheap re-tread of the last bad faith offer.

I don't, as I said, agree that this is a bad faith offer. It is unattractive in a number of ways, but unlike the DOO thing I don't believe there is anything in it that was deliberately put there to cause it to be rejected.

A bad offer and a bad faith offer are two VERY different things. The first offer was the latter, this one is just the former.

 

[yorksrob]

From a NR standpoint - The previous offer was put to a vote and rejected 2 to 1.

This offer was so similar that they asked the membership if they felt it justified another referendum. I couldn't make the short notice branch meeting but did email my local rep with my thoughts.

It seems the overwhelming feedback delivered from the membership was that the offer was too similar to the previous deal and should be rejected. Which is what has happened.

Yes, I sometimes lose track that there are different strands to the dispute. I'd gathered that the Government had stopped playing silly buggers with DOO on the TOC side, but obviously the NR side has its own issues.

 

[Sleepy]

I'm assuming that by the comments by them "seeking new talks with TOCs and Network Rail" that they will hopefully at least try and have a couple more days of talks before announcing yet more strikes.

Otherwise seems very odd not to put the offer to the membership.

The members were asked to give their local branch their views of the offer which was passed to HQ. At the end of the day turkeys don't vote for Christmas - some semblance of work life balance is required - you can't change someone's days off the week before. You have to remember for all the media reports of £50k plus salaries there are many many members of RMT on around £25K or less starting work at 0400 or finishing at 0230 (and night shifts in many cases too)

 

[Philip]

Thought rpi's will be part of station groups and not as onboard crew and therefore have a possibility of split shifts, 7 day working and Bank Holidays to be considered as normal working days.

There has been no mention of 7 day working or split shifts.

 

[Drogba11CFC]

Of course they did.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The stark reality is expenditure exceeds income by a large margin

Expecting the railways to break even is an ideological position.

The current framework where various layers of private management each all take a slice of revenue for themselves before handing the bill to the taxpayer is also an ideological position.

Nationalising the Covid losses were also an ideological position.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Expecting the railways to break even is an ideological position.

The current framework where various layers of private management each all take a slice of revenue for themselves before handing the bill to the taxpayer is also an ideological position.

Nationalising the Covid losses were also an ideological position.

Correct. However, it is the case that because high-fare business demand has reduced, subsidy has increased. A decision does have to be made on what a reasonable level of subsidy is. The railway cannot have a blank cheque, and given the choice between a more thinly-staffed operation and closing significant chunks of it (just pruning a few branch lines doesn't save a lot) I'll go for the former every single time.

 

[Tetchytyke]

A bad offer and a bad faith offer are two VERY different things. The first offer was the latter, this one is just the former.

I would agree on the first point. Not all bad offers are bad faith.

In regards to the latest offer, the DOO condition was pparticularly egregious but I'm not convinced this offer is made in much better faith. It certainly isn't for the NR offer.

 

[Fred26]

Even if the RMT are playing politics (I don't buy it, but playing devil's advocate...), the membership aren't.
I guarantee you won't find a member involved in this dispute who wants this to go on and on to bring the government down. It's a ridiculous suggestion for a couple of reasons - one, most people need to work to survive. Certainly, all RMT members do.
Secondly, this government are doing a perfectly good job of bringing themselves down without the help of anyone else.
Whatever the leadership are doing, the membership are on strike because their terms are under attack.

I'm surprised it didn't got to a vote, but at the same time, I've yet to find anyone who would've voted for it anyway.
There is so much in the offer that is unpalatable that it could never be agreed.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Correct. However, it is the case that because high-fare business demand has reduced, subsidy has increased. A decision does have to be made on what a reasonable level of subsidy is

I'm not entirely convinced by the narrative that everyone has deserted the railway and there's no money. There's a lot of disingenuity going on, whether it's the government releasing travel figures from six months ago and saying they reflect today's situation, or whether it's the government claiming that their decision to keep the network running during Covid was "keeping people in jobs".

Commuter routes were, even before Covid, some of the most heavily subsidised services due to annual season tickets.

I don't think anything should be a blank cheque, but it's interesting how staff costs are identified as the issue and not, say, the IEP and Thameslink fleet procurement projects that were slated by the National Audit Office.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Expecting the railways to break even is an ideological position.

DfT ne HMT aren't expecting them to break even they are providing continuing high levels of operational support as well as CAPEX but for that they expect the industry to be doing its bit to look at itself and see where efficiencies can be made. Oh and i don't buy DOO as a panacea to that problem but the unions need to recognise and acknowledge that collectively the industry needs to examine itself and i would perhaps offer a two year deal with second year being dependnat on the latter at least being done thoroughly only to prove disprove to DfT what is possible and deliverable

The current framework where various layers of private management each all take a slice of revenue for themselves before handing the bill to the taxpayer is also an ideological position.

of course but Labour perpetuated that for 13 years as well so don't expect them to really change things and whilst operations could be "nationalised" for want of a better word they wont have the funds to buy out the leasing companies so we are stuck with that.