Has Labour promised to repeal this if they win the next GE?3 Power to make consequential provisionStrikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023
www.legislation.gov.uk
(1)The Secretary of State may by regulations made by statutory instrument make provision that is consequential on this Act.
(3) A statutory instrument containing (whether alone or with other provision) regulations under this section that amend or repeal provision made by primary legislation may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.
(4) Any other statutory instrument containing regulations under this section is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.
Power of Secretary of State to specify minimum service levels
(1)The Secretary of State may, for the purpose of enabling work notices under section 234C to be given, make provision by regulations for levels of service in relation to strikes as respects relevant services (“minimum service regulations”).
Work notices relating to minimum service levels
(1)Where minimum service regulations have been made as respects a relevant service, an employer may give a work notice to a trade union in relation to any strike
(5) A work notice must not identify more persons than are reasonably necessary for the purpose of providing the levels of service under the minimum service regulations.
It is for the train operator not Government ministers to decide whether or not to give a work notice with the aim of operating the number of services under the minimum service regulations, the train operator does not have to do this and it would appear they can legally only do so for a set of services that is agreed to be the minimum service level of 40% of the operator’s timetabled services during the strike.
Train operation services
Where a strike affects passenger train operation services, the MSL is the equivalent of 40% of the operator’s timetabled services during the strike.
But what does that mean? The following are listed as timetabled services
Brockenhurst to Lymington Pier 10 minutes
Weymouth to London Waterloo 3 hours
Is it 40% of the number of timetabled services from start station to end station? So 40% of services could be made up of the shortest services which would be a lot less than 40% of the total run time of all the train services run by the train operator during the strike? Or the longest services which would be a lot more then 40% of the total run time?
The following means that the 40% of train services whatever that is means it is in effect a ceiling not a floor on the services that an train operator can attempt to provide during a strike should the train operator decide to attempt to do so. The train operator would not be able to issue work notices for a service level more than the MSL. If more than one possible sets of services were identified which were agreed to meet the MSL would the train operator have to choose the set of services which requires the lowest number of people identified as necessary to provide the set of services?
(5) A work notice must not identify more persons than are reasonably necessary for the purpose of providing the levels of service under the minimum service regulations.
Trouble brewing?
RMT GS has messaged relevant members, surprised it's not hot the news yet.
What's the dispute about?
From the RMT site "
Forget that - I've read the RMT thing
IIUC from this House of Commons 'insight', and as has been said, TOCs are not obliged to 'enforce' MSLs.
But it's still rubbish and was obviously chosen in a rushed manner given that it's based on one set of strikes last January rather than considering what actually should be priority. For example, Thames branches and the Hounslow loop are considered priority while Richmond and Guildford are not.
Yes, within the first 100 days in power as part of its New Deal for Working People https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/a-new-deal-for-working-people/
Starmer has promised lots of things and backtracked on many of them.
Because it made it through the National Policy Forum, unlike the things you listed above. Making it through NPF means it will make it to the Clause V meeting which will determine the manifesto and the Labour affiliated Unions will prioritise this and have the opportunity to veto any attempts to water down the NPF pledge at the clause V stage. Anyway the internal mechanisms of Labour Policy formation aren't really railway specific, so probably not for this forum.
Not railway specific but I would argue it is relevant to the subject of this thread and it's interesting.
Which is problematic as I doubt they're going to be given the choice by their paymasters the DfT...
Are industrial relations generally good across the industry at the moment? It doesn't seem that way...
Under the legislation only the train operators can decide whether or not to plan to run exactly 40% of the services during a strike and issue work notices to their relevant employees to achieve this. It is not a decision for the Government and the legislation gives the Government no legal authority to instruct a train operator to run the 40% minimum service during a strike. If a train operator decides not to plan to run the minimum service level during a strike and not to issue any work notices there is nothing that the Government can do about it. Many of the press reports on this issue imply that train operators will be forced to run 40% of services during a strike but this is not the case, the legislation gives train operators the option to plan to do this and issue work notices for this but it does not require train operators to do this.
I admire your optimism that the DfT won't be leaning on the TOCs to ensure they issue Work Notices.
It doesn't need to. It already has the operators in a position where it says "jump" and they say "how high?"
Repealing the 2017 Act won't take us back to the 1970s. The 1990 Employment Act (and everything before it) was sufficient. Not that the 2017 Act has done much to prevent strikes, the government has pissed everyone off sufficiently that everything is comfortably exceeding the thresholds.
They aren’t in every sector
The mechanism maybe that the DfT will say to the TOCs we will pay as per contract if you run the 40% min strike day service.
AIUI the train operators are currently paid a fixed fee to run the train service and the Government covers the costs and takes all the fare revenue. The Government's approval is therefore presumably needed for any change to the train service that increases costs including pay increases for staff and running more train services. However I am not clear what incentive there is under this system for the train operator to run any train services during a strike if all the fare revenue goes to the Government.
The operators can be forced to do so under their National Rail Contracts with the government.
I have not looked at every contract but I have not so far seen anything to this effect.
Consider Article 7 of Chapter 4.2 of the National Rail Contract, entitled Obligation to use “all reasonable endeavours” under Chapter 4.2. You will find the same formulation under Obligation to use “all reasonable endeavours” under Schedule 1.2 of the Service Contract with the OLR subsidiaries. I read it as they do not have to use Work Notices unless they would otherwise fail to meet the 40% level in which case it would on the face of it be failing to employ all reasonable endeavours which would be in breach of contract. The choice of risk is entirely up to operators. However if they do decide to do it they would have to consult the DfT under other clauses and if DfT said yes the would be indenmified against the risk. If you were the MD what would you do?
Forget what? If it is wrong correct it. The rest of us don't know what the RMT thing to which you refer actually is, or whether it is related to what you were commenting on.
