Socialist Party members in RMT
After the rail companies made no offer in negotiations, the RMT union has announced an escalation of strike action, with a series of 48-hour strikes in December and January.
The dispute has entered an even more serious stage, and all the trade union movement must step up support for the RMT and its members.
The union’s reballot results show there can now be no doubt that RMT members are ready to enter battle once again.
Another massive mandate on the Train Operating Companies (TOCs). Avanti West Coast members returned a fantastic 97% vote for strike action, and Cross Country Trains members were not far behind on 95%.
Network Rail (NR) members have delivered a rock-solid 91%. Across all of the companies balloted, an average of 70% took part.
While setting new strike dates is vital and very welcome, many RMT members have expressed concerns about the decision of the national executive committee (NEC) to call off the last period of action, following the offer of talks by the railway employers. Imposition of changes was withdrawn by the bosses, but leading reps and activists, who have worked hard to deliver the action so far, were disappointed with this decision.
NEC members have argued that it was necessary to call off the action because otherwise the union would have been locked out of talks. We would argue that the only reason the employers are willing to talk at all is because we are prepared to call out our members, who are ready to fight.
But now that the tremendous result of the reballot is in, and new dates set, the lessons must be learned for this new phase of the dispute.
Members don’t need to be reminded what is at stake for us and the future employment model of the railway; we all know that this is a once-in-a-generation dispute.
For a start, over 2,000 NR maintenance jobs are facing the axe in the false guise of ‘modernisation’, along with the prospect of over 1,000 booking offices closing and the regrading of all frontline roles. ‘Driver-only operation’ is now firmly back on the agenda. Our precious pension scheme is firmly in the sights of the bosses, who want to slash their liabilities and thus make us pay more, work longer, and receive less when we retire.
Of course, our dispute on the national railway is not happening in isolation. The strike by London members on 10 November on London Underground and Overground once again brought the capital to a standstill.
Tens of thousands of transport workers have been taking action over recent months, from tram drivers in the West Midlands, who have just won a 20% pay rise, to the bus drivers across the country, who have been successfully fighting for improvements in their pay.
But the national rail dispute has not yet seen a breakthrough, and it is clear that the employers are playing a carefully planned game, determined to make savage cuts to our industry and remould it into one with less secure and more flexible jobs, lower pay, and deteriorating work-life balance for those of us at the sharp end.
The employers are working in league with the Tory government, both of whom want to break union influence in the rail industry and press ahead with massive changes which will be detrimental to our members.
We call for a national NR and TOC reps meeting to discuss building the dispute from here.
While our Network Rail members have national-level reps in the form of the national operations/maintenance councils, there is currently no national committee representing our TOC members. If one existed, it would allow TOC reps to work with NR reps more effectively, and plan a strategy of strike action which would meet the expectations of the members across the industry. We think that a committee of this kind should be formed as soon as possible.
Action should be coordinated wherever possible with other unions, both on the railway and wider industry, such as the postal workers, university lecturers and nurses.
This would maximise our impact and would be a step towards the generalised strike action urgently needed to bring this rotten government down.
