Unions claim rail safety threatened by NR cuts
RAIL unions have warned of “devastating consequences” for rail safety over allegations that Network Rail is looking to cut more than 2,600 jobs in maintenance and works delivery.
The TSSA union has claimed that NR also plans to scrap its frontline operative role, ask staff to work across wider geographical areas and “abandon certain pieces of maintenance work” as part of a consultation that began on March 10.
An NR spokesman told RAIL that no firm proposals had yet been made, but confirmed that operational savings were being targeted from within its maintenance activities.
This is in addition to approximately 2,000 positions in senior and management grades that are to be shed as part of NR’s voluntary severance scheme or are now at risk of compulsory redundancy (RAIL 951).
It is understood that NR is seeking to reduce its total payroll by an estimated £170 million per annum, as part of wider efforts to achieve efficiency gains from its overall budget of nearly £4 billion across Control Period 6 (CP6, Apr 2019-Mar 2024).
Allegations that safety would be in any way compromised under future arrangements were emphatically rejected by the infrastructure company.
“We want a sustainable future for our railway,” the NR spokesman said. “For that to happen, we need to make a permanent reduction in our operational costs. Maintenance is the biggest single area of operational spend within NR and we haven’t modernised the way we do that work or how we deploy our people in over ten years.
“We have shared ideas within our trade unions about how we can modernise to create better and safer jobs for our people. No firm proposals have been tabled yet and we are meeting the unions on March 17 [after this issue of RAIL went to press] to continue talks. We would never put forward plans that make the railway or our employees less safe.”
TSSA General Secretary Manuel Cortes argued that any proposals involving the reduction of Maintenance Scheduled Tasks would pose a risk to the railway, as fewer inspections and regular maintenance would take place.
He also warned that his union would immediately ballot for industrial action unless NR ruled out the prospect of compulsory redundancies.
He added: “What NR is proposing is massive job cuts and massive changes to working practices which could have devastating consequences to the safe running of our industry. We fundamentally disagree with NR’s [alleged] claim that some of this work is unnecessary.
“Staffing cuts and reduction in maintenance work could see a return to the bad old days of Railtrack when infrastructure wasn’t properly maintained and saw some of the most deadly and devastating rail accidents.”
Meanwhile, the RMT union held a day of protest on March 9 when rail workers gathered at major stations in London, Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester and Leeds to tell passengers that staff cuts combined with the recent fares rise of 3.8% would mean they were paying “more for less”.
RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch said: “Despite rail fares going up again, the Government and rail companies are planning to slash rail services and thousands of frontline jobs at stations, on trains and on safety-critical infrastructure.
“That means our railways will be less secure, less safe and less accessible, with even more expensive rail fares; passengers will literally be paying more for less.”