UK railway disputes [was: Sickie by Southern Rail Train Conductors]

Yeah this is totally fucking the trains, daily delays and cancellations (well, many more than usual, if you're used to Southern). There was an official two-day strike and Southern reportedly victimised strikers, so there's now ongoing sick-outs.

https://www.rmt.org.uk/campaigns/rail/keep-southern-trains-safe/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36417578

The government have also apparently amended Southern's franchise agreement as they'd already exceeded the limit of cancelled services, which could lead to withdrawing the franchise https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/scandal-of-new-gtr-contract/

I reckon if it is to beat industrial action, the government will ignore its own rules.

For example, Camden's Labour council has a parking contract with the company, NSL. During strikes this year, they meant the company didn't meet its targets to get paid, however the council paid them anyway to help them break the strike and bring in scabs from the North and elsewhere in the UK

Only heard this second hand, but word is that Southern are overplaying the sickness to save money on cancelled services while blaming the workers. Apparently they're denying overtime to strikers despite cancelling services 'for lack of staff'. I guess since the government's backing them they're confident they can just fuck over users and workers alike.

This was actually in the Telegraph, quoting the RMT extensively: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/05/train-operator-caught-red-handed-blaming-cancelled-services-on-n/

Letter from Southern Conductors earlier in the dispute, spells out the issues well.

https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/a-letter-from-southern-conductors/

Day 2 of the 5 day strike and the trains are fucked. From my stop there's no trains at all running after 5pm so having to leave work early.

Edit: rumour is they've cancelled trains on police advice cos there's an Albion match on tonight, and the already reduced service, plus the strike, can't cope with 30,000 people on top of two universities.

This article interestingly points out that Govia are on a management contract and are not a franchise, so the Department of Transport are much more involved in this dispute than I had appreciated. The rest of the article is largely filler though.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/10/strikes-disputes-rail-southern-1970s

Strike suspended from tomorrow for talks.

probably worth starting a new thread for the other rail disputes…

Steven, Separate discussion threads for each of the current rail disputes?? Reinforcing sectionalism in our coverage? Are these not connected in terms of privatisation in the industry, current economic troubles post Brexit, shambles in government and LP circles, role of RMT/ASLEF unions, new technology and technical composition in the rail/transport industry?? I don't think 'we' on libcom are actually organising these strikes even if we might show some limited solidarity unless there is a whole libcom faction inside the industry or unions I'm unaware of? Surely best to encourage analysis amongst both rail workers and workers more generally on this site by drawing together/linking it all as best we can?

And also, having lots of different threads is just harder to follow.

Though maybe would benefit from a more general title or a new combined thread?

I've updated the thread title

A similar dispute over the role of guards is brewing at the Northern Trains company - will try to find out more.
Edit: Should say that this likely follows the takeover of the franchise from last April by Arriva and the promise to upgrade by replacing the old Pacer trains which are still running at present.

Also noted that ASLEF the train drivers union are balloting over possible industrial action in response to the Southern Rails imposition of a reduced timetable - ballots due in end of this month. Not sure if this amounts to any kind of solidarity with RMT members or just the usual sectional defence of their members conditions? Their is a long history of differences between the two unions despite their respective left leaning leaderships

I'm not aware of any. Also because the RMT is a "militant" union, that seems to generally have the effect of meaning that militancy and workers' activity takes place within the union, rather than needing to go outside it. So rather than start an unofficial newsletter, militants will just run local branch newsletters, which you can normally read on branch websites/blogs themselves.

This lack of organisation outside the union structure is a weakness. You could see this most clearly in the Eurostar dispute, where only a small group of workers (train managers) were taking action, isolated from the rest of their colleagues in the UK, and isolated from their colleagues in France and Belgium, so disruption was minimal. (N.b. I'm not just blaming this on the unions, as the situation is more complex than that. Mostly disputes end up isolated because other workers aren't prepared to take action in support of other people - this is pretty unsurprising as much of the time workers aren't prepared to take action in support of themselves, let alone anyone else)