Railway’s unsung heroes.

Longer franchises would give operators more opportunity to generate greater staff input and involvement, curbing the excesses of both management and the unions, argues PHILIP HAIGH

“If you’re reading this piece as an assault against trade unions, you shouldn’t. I’ve long believed that unions can and should act as a brake on management excesses, but that brake should work equally in the other direction.”

AMID all the talk of new trains and upgraded tracks, it’s easy to forget the role that thousands of staff have in making the railway work.

They are as affected as any passenger by all the change we see, and they themselves must change to new ways of working if those passengers are to truly benefit.

Yet staff occupy a strange position. Those in the passenger world work for train operators, but are not the train operators’. East Midlands Trains staff will soon be changing their Stagecoach uniforms and lanyards for ones designed by Abellio, just as longer-serving staff switched from National Express to Stagecoach in 2007, or from British Rail to NX at privatisation.

Over at East Coast, there have been even more changes over the years. Yet there’s been one constant - and that’s the union tie or pinbadge. Like them or loathe them, rail trade unions have been around a long time.

Drivers’ union ASLEF was founded in 1880, and while the RMT is a relatively new amalgamation of several unions, its National Union of Railwaymen constituent dates back to 1913. White collar TSSA dates back to 1897.

Little wonder then that rail’s trade unions remain strong. They are the constant in a world that never seems to stop changing. They have greater influence over staff than ‘here-todaygone-tomorrow’ train operating companies (TOCs). Even when the operators don’t change, many are simply drip-fed extensions with no long-term outlook.

This isn’t a healthy balance. One TOC managing director remarked to me last year that one pressing reason to have longer franchises was to put industrial relations on a firmer footing.

More recently, former Network Rail Chief Executive Mark Carne has noted the absence of normal business pressures on rail unions.

In other industries, he argued, if trade unions push too hard for higher pay or shorter hours, then there’s a risk the employer goes bust and the staff lose their jobs. Owners, managers, staff and unions all depend on a company’s success. In contrast, if a train operator disappears, as Virgin Trains East Coast did last year, then all the staff simply transfer to its replacement.

There is no effective check by train operating companies on rail unions, as there are in other markets or industries.

To borrow a phrase, the train operators may have the watches but the unions have the time. Unions can simply dig their heels in and resist change, waiting until someone more compliant

takes over. They can resist change even when it could be in passengers’ or staff interest.

Take the RMT’s dispute with Southern as an example. Here the union resisted Southern’s switch to driver-only trains with guards ditched in favour of a new job called an on-board supervisor. The OBS would have no operational role, but could check tickets and reassure staff with a train still able to run without one.

Southern was talking about employing more OBSs than it had employed guards, which would result in more staff and (I assume) more union members. While the RMT made great play of the dispute being about safety, it was clear that removing the compulsory guard took away the union’s ability to stop trains running by strike action.

Passengers would benefit from improved punctuality or fewer cancellations caused by guards being absent from their booked train, perhaps because their inward working was late. There was also a prospect - perhaps remote - of deploying OBSs to trains that have been run as driver-only for many years. This would have improved matters for passengers and brought more jobs.

A similar dispute at Northern led to the train company eventually giving way after months of Saturday strikes. I’m not convinced that the dispute is settled, but with Northern’s parent company Arriva now for sale, it’s clear there’s little support for further dispute from its owner.

If you’re reading this piece as an assault against trade unions, you shouldn’t. I’ve long believed that unions can and should act as a brake on management excesses, but that brake should work equally in the other direction.

Sure, it’s staff who decide whether to vote for strikes, but today’s world of short-term or dripfed franchises gives managers little chance to influence or lead their (temporary) staff.

In some ways, this reflects the recent headlines about railway pensions and Stagecoach’s ejection from three franchise competitions.

Government wants short-term companies to take on long-term risks when government is the only long-term player in the franchise market. Is it really realistic to expect a new train operating company to fill an inherited longterm pension black hole when it will only be running trains for a few years?

I don’t think so. But were government to start a programme of long-term franchises - perhaps 20 years - then this balance would change. And it would give managers a realistic chance to lead their people, rather than being consumed by delivering the mammoth list of ‘committed obligations’ that comes with every franchise today.

Their list might still be long, but there would be time to convince staff rather than bulldoze. There would be time to thoroughly test new trains before their introduction. There would be time to develop effective timetables. There would be time to recruit and train staff for these new trains and services.

In short, there would be time to deliver a reliable railway that puts passengers first, without trampling on the many great people who work for the railway.