I must admit I don’t have much sympathy for the striking staff or the union. The rest of us have to get to work and we lose out if we can’t. Striking is never an option for many - and most of those do not feel disadvantaged by that. I know if I went on strike in my job, my employer would find a way to remove me from the business, and that’s the same for millions of workers. Striking diminishes the need to compromise.
What’s particularly galling is in this case the union is meddling in issues it should stay out of. These disputes are about DOO. While one survey suggests that passengers believe a second safety-critical staff member should be on trains, I’m willing to bet that if a slightly different question was asked the result would be somewhat different. “Would you be prepared to pay higher fares and more for season tickets for a second member of staff to be on the train?” would deliver a different message, because the harsh reality is most people want more right up until it costs them more. Then they go for the cheaper option. If I had a choice of two TOCs, and one was cheaper because they used DOO and the other was more expensive because it had more staff on board, I know what I’d do - take the cheaper option.
Other than the issues of ongoing employment for the second-staff involved (and even that is tenuous IMO - see later), DOO should not be a union matter. DOO has been accepted by the ORR and that should be an end to it - the union should not be trying to exert its will and opinion to override the decision of the ORR, which has an objective to ensure passenger safety and only allow operations that are, in the opinion of the experts, safe.
Reality is the union is only in this to protect jobs, and to try to preserve pay for workers based on them being regarded as performing a safety critical rather than revenue-related job. Even protecting jobs is a tenuous issue as far as I am concerned. Millions of workers in thousands of roles have either lost their jobs or had their work deskilled (and lost pay as a result) due to the ongoing onslaught of technology and changes (improvements) to processes. Where was the rail union when thousands of IT works jobs were outsourced to India - where was the rail union when the third crew member was removed from the cockpit of airliners - where was the rail union when workers in bars, restaurants and shops saw their terms and conditions eroded and contracts moved to part time or zero hours? Even on the railways many catering jobs were outsourced and staff in those roles are now lower paid and have to accept sales targets. But the union was smug in the knowledge it wasn’t happening to train drivers and guards that paid well in terms of subs and let the rest of us suffer.
There are thousands more examples of situations where workers have had to accept change, and in almost all cases it happened without strikes. But now its happening on the railway. Adapt, change and accept the new ways of working should be the message to the union and those contemplating or already striking. And don’t continue to insist on archaic ways of working, refuse to accept efficiency improvements, and sulk by striking and messing up the working lives of millions of innocent bystanders (customers) in the process when they don’t get their way.
Anyone remember PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organisation) in the USA? In 1981 Ronald Reagan sacked more than 11,000 striking air traffic controllers. Air travel was crippled or severely disrupted for a while, but a new cadre of non-union air traffic controllers was recruited and trained and things eventually returned to normal. If railway staff and their unions can’t recognise that they are providing a vital service that customers across the nation depend on and have a right to expect will run, perhaps we should take some short-term pain, remove them and replace them with non-union staff who are prepared to work, accept that change happens over time, and adapt.
Reality is there is a role for unions and strikes, and they should not all be outlawed. But this is the wrong fight at the wrong time. The union and the workers it represents needs to have a little more humility and accept that no one will be immune from the changing world.