Ministers must stand up to the rail unions
The threatened national rail strike will not only massively inconvenience the travelling public but represents a significant political challenge to the Government, with consequences across the public sector.
The RMT union has called its members out over the week of June 21 to 25 in a dispute over pay, redundancies and new working practices. The stoppages are choreographed to take place on three days to maximise disruption while minimising the financial impact on the union’s members. For two days they are, in theory, working; but strikes on the other three days effectively mean trains will not be running for the entire week.
The RMT prides itself on being an effective union because it has successfully faced down attempts to modernise working practices on the railways while securing pay rises and resisting job losses. It is one of the last of the unreconstructed militant organisations that held the country to ransom in the past.
Even though the railways were ostensibly privatised in the 1990s, the track has been back in state hands for 20 years and the operating companies kept running into financial difficulties despite rising passenger numbers. The taxpayer has been forking out more in subsidies than under the old British Rail nationalised model.
Then came the pandemic, reducing the customer base by 80 per cent or more and making commercial survival all but impossible. Now the Government has effectively decided to renationalise the system as Great British Railways, under which private companies will survive as operators on a performance contract.
If Whitehall is taking over then it needs to confront the biggest barrier to a modern, corporate rail system – namely the rail unions. Their control over the industry is destructive. They use strike threats to require an annual pay rise based on the retail price index, pushing up the costs of the industry as a result. Fares have risen to levels far above those seen in most comparable countries.
Critics accuse the unions of resisting modernisation of working practices and technology. It is argued that union controls over recruitment add to delays in training drivers and guards, and that rail company management is therefore hamstrung. This activity cannot be allowed to continue. The strike is the Government’s opportunity to stop it. Will it take it?