Rail Workers Take the Lead

The recent strike of railworkers belonging to the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union staggered across June 21, 23 and 25 involving more than 40 thousand workers across 15 different operating companies, sent shockwaves through the UK and rattled the bourgeois media, It is the largest strike action on the British railway network since 1989.

The strikes, over cuts in real wages, job cuts and changes to working practices, have heralded a wave of industrial disputes in several categories, especially in the public sector.

A quote from a railworker circulating online paints a clear picture of why they are striking:

“Three years ago we accepted a 0% pay rise, two years ago we accepted a 0% pay rise. But this year they came to us with a 0% pay rise plus over 2500 redundancies, changes to terms and conditions. An increase from 28 weeks of nights to 39 weeks of nights. An increase from 32 weekends worked to 39 weekends worked. Currently for a night shift we get time and a quarter, for a weekend turn we get time and a half. They wish to cut both of these to time and a tenth. So that’s a 15% pay cut on every night shift and a 40% pay cut on every weekend turn. But they want us to work more of them. This is their modernisation they talk about. Not technology, we embrace technology and have seen more and more of it in recent years. They also wish to fire and re-hire the operative grades and bring them back under a new job title but on £9000 a year less. They also want them to use their own vehicles to get to work sites, this when fuel is at its highest. They will also be pooled when they are currently part of the team. The press are painting this to be about pay above all else. It is not. But now we’ve said sod them we are going to demand better. I wish everyone could see past the government controlled media smear”.

A separate dispute over pension reductions with TFL (Transport for London), the operator of the London underground tube system, ran on the first day of the other mentioned strikes adding fuel to the fire and made travel through London take 2-4 times as long across most of the day.

Train drivers, who are members of the ASLEF union, are also taking action against some employers. A one-day drivers’ strike against Great Anglia took place on July 2, leading to the cancelation of 90% of services.

Despite the media trying to downplay the severity of the strikes, while simultaneously labelling the striking workers as selfishly damaging the UK economy and people’s dayto-day life, it was projected that at least £90 million worth of output loss from work absences would be recorded and there would be over £500 million of lost profits for the hospitality business from customers being unable to go out.

Predictably the current Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson has hit out at the strikers accusing them of being well paid drivers and telling travelers to try and get on with it while blaming the strikes on the opposing party support, with the transport secretary calling the strikes “reckless vandalism” and suggesting driverless trains are a more attractive option than striking workers.

Also very predictably the opposing “labour” party has been anything but supportive of the strikes with the leader Keir Starmer even going as far as to tell his MPs to stay away from pickets to “show leadership”.

Not to be outdone by the anti-worker rhetoric of the more popular parties the liberal democrats had a member go on live TV and suggest the army could be brought in to deal with the strikes while saying this action could somehow be justified with the current cost of living crisis being faced, the health of the economy being protected and that “desperate times call for desperate measures” and “this isn’t what the country needs right now”.

The RMT secretary on air with this politician pointed out that this would constitute the government getting involved in strikebreaking and that taking this action would be “going to war with workers”.

Despite the huge blow to the national economy the RMT officials appear to be looking for a compromise. General Secretary Mick Lynch announced that all cuts remain on the table along with worse contracts being introduced. He was quoted as saying that the companies “have taken an extremely hard line, we believe at the behest of the government in order to push through their agenda of £2 billion of cuts and what they call ‘Workforce Reform’”.

Moreover, the demand for a 7.1% pay increase, if obtained, would still represent a pay cut in real terms, with UK inflation already above 9% and set to rise further.

The government transport secretary has also been accused of wrecking negotiations by forbidding Network Rail, which is the main government-owned operator, to withdraw its letter threatening redundancy for thousands of workers.

Apart from the main RMT strikes, the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA), which represents white collar workers, announced that its members at Merseyrail had managed to secure a 7% pay increase.

Workers in other transport categories are already taking, or voting to take, strike action, notably: bus workers on Merseyside, TSSA workers in several regions and 500 BA check-in staff at Heathrow airport, who saw their pay cut by 10% during the pandemic.

Elsewhere, the Communication Workers Union announced that supply chain and admin workers would walk out on July 14, three days after 1,500 staff at Crown branches of the Post Office stage a 24-hour strike. Even barristers staged a one-day strike in June. These professionals have seen their pay and conditions severely worsen over recent years.

It is predicted that teachers and NHS staff will strike later in the year. Even the police in Scotland -who are forbidden strike action by law – recently voted to “withdraw goodwill”, which in effect means an overtime ban.

The failure of the RMT regime union to capitalize on the concentrated efforts of workers across many different sectors show the necessity of building a true class union front and having a strategy aimed towards the unity of the entire working class against the capitalist state rather than entrusting negotiations to the corporatist maneuverings of RMT bureaucrats who, despite their class struggle rhetoric, will not be able to gain anything for the workers they supposedly represent.