Shapps ready to outlaw rail unions’ summer of strikes
MINISTERS are threatening to act to put the block on plans by the unions for a summer of strike chaos.
Action over pay and conditions could lead to the “biggest rail strike in modern history” with walkouts as soon as next month.
Transport Secretary Grants Shapps warned that the Government is ready to draw up laws that would make any industrial action illegal if minimum staffing levels were not met.
He accused unions of treating strikes as a first, rather than a last, resort at a time when railways are already on “financial life support” following the pandemic.
Mr Shapps said the Conservative manifesto included a pledge to “require that a minimum service operates during transport strikes”.
He added: “If they really got to that point, minimum service levels would be a way to work towards protecting those freight routes and those sorts of things. We very much hope they will wake up and smell the coffee.” More than 40,000 members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union at Network Rail and train operators have been voting on a campaign of industrial action.
Jubilee celebrations in London already face disruption caused by a planned Tube strike. Mick Lynch, RMT’s general secretary, said: “Any attempt by Grant Shapps to make effective strike action illegal will be met with the fiercest resistance from RMT and the wider trade union movement.”
The Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association is also threatening industrial action in the same dispute.
General secretary Manuel Cortes said: “What we are seeing here is desperate nonsense from the Tories, who have chosen to attack working people in our union who kept the railways running every day of the pandemic.
“What the Government should be doing is putting in place measures to deal with the cost-of-living crisis.”
Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi plans to loosen the grip of unions on schools by boosting the rights of teachers who do not wish to join one.
He wants to give teachers the right to be accompanied to grievance and disciplinary meetings by representatives other than trade unionists.
TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Ministers have failed to deal with the cost of living. Now they are trying to distract from their failure by picking a fight with unions.
“We will fight these unfair and unworkable proposals to undermine the right to strike, and we will win.”
THE Platinum Jubilee is a unique milestone in the story of our nation. Already a mood of anticipation is spreading as the public prepares to celebrate this special occasion and express thanks to the Queen for her 70 years of dedicated service.
Yet, amid the patriotic joy, there is one group of wreckers who aim to undermine the festivities for their own ends.
In a move that smacks of blackmail, the RMT transport union is now planning a major strike on the Underground network during the Jubilee Bank Holiday just when tens of thousands of people will be hoping to gather in the heart of the capital to honour Elizabeth II.
General Secretary Mick Lynch claims his members have been forced to challenge bullying by Transport for London and warns that, unless management backs down, there will be “significant disruption” of Tube services, particularly at the key stations near Buckingham Palace.
The RMT’s threat is a cynical abuse of monopolistic power to maximise public frustration and cause panic among transport bosses. There is not a shred of justification for this stoppage.
Tube drivers are among the aristocracy of labour, enjoying lavish pay, pensions and perks. Their basic salary is £56,000 but, with overtime and allowances, the total packages are worth far more.
LAST November, it was reported that three Underground drivers had earned up to £100,000, while no fewer than 3,045 of them had received between £70,000 and £80,000.
It is laughable to pretend that these are downtrodden workers struggling for their basic rights. Most commuters earn far less than them and will be feeling the cost-of-living crisis more sharply.
What the RMT is doing has nothing to do with social justice and everything to do with the exploitation of its privileged position.
Sadly, the potential London Underground stoppage is just part of a wider programme of planned mayhem by the 40,000 RMT members, who are currently being balloted for industrial action over job losses and pension changes, as the rail industry seeks to balance the books in the face of a vast exodus of passengers since the Covid pandemic.
At the weekend, Mick Lynch said in tones of destructive relish that “a rail strike will bring the country to a standstill”, reaching from “the north of Scotland to the tip of Cornwall”.
Shortages of food and power could be the result, as well as misery for travellers. This summer of chaos will be even worse if the RMT is backed by the other big rail unions, notably ASLEF, representing the drivers, and the TSSA, made up of white collar staff.
The unions’ goals are not just industrial. They also want to crank up political pressure on the Government to renationalise the rail system.
PRIVATISATION has been “a disaster”, says Lynch. But in fact the rail sell-off has been a great success, pushing up the number of journeys to 1.8 billion a year.
Moreover, renationalisation will do nothing to improve industrial relations. Under the state-owned British Rail in the decades before privatisation, strikes were endemic.
Moreover, the SNP government in Edinburgh has just taken Scotrail into its hands. The first response of the RMT has been to call a series of walkouts, leading to the cancellation of hundreds of services.
The rail militancy seems infectious. As part of a dispute over pay and pensions, university lecturers are currently engaged in a marking boycott of students’ work. The GMB is holding a ballot for strikes at Britain’s airports. Refuse collectors, lorry drivers, health workers and postal staff are also threatening industrial action.
In response, the Government now talks of new laws to break the stranglehold of the unions. These include a plan in the education sector to boost the rights of non-union members.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps wants laws by which unions would agree to provide a minimum level of service in the event of a walkout or face fines.
But the Government should entirely remove the unions’ legal immunity over damages caused by strikes. Unions like the RMT have shown they are too irresponsible to enjoy such protections. If they could be sued, like any other individual or organisation, they would soon stop their antics.
Tory Government ministers like to boast that they are Thatcherities in spirit.
This is the moment to prove it, by taking on the militants who show contempt for the public and the Queen.
‘Remove unions’ immunity from being sued over strike damage’