Song Remains the Same
The dispute is apparently about working on public holidays such as Boxing Day - with ASLEF demanding that their members should be paid triple time - plus an extra day in lieu.
Quite what the logic of this demand is I don't know - because no other public service industry in the land pays such high rates - as far as I know anyway.
So what makes train or tube drivers so special - because a nurse or a carer doesn't get triole time and a day in lieu?
Nothing is the answer - but for years the rail unions have used their bargaining position to drive up pay and conditions - for jobs that don't hold a candle to many other demanding jobs in the public sector.
The London underground drivers are paid salaries worth almost £50,000 a year - much more than a highly qualified nurse running an intensive care unit - for example.
But the drivers willingness to go on strike regularly has driven wages up to levels that are in no way justified - in terms of the skill and responsibility of their jobs.
Successive governments have lacked the will to bring forward proposals to require compulsory arbitration in damaging disputes like these - which is really what's required.
Here's something I wrote about ASLEF for one of the Sunday newspapers - almost 10 years ago now - I don't think much has changed beyond the fact that the union has a new general sercretary.
In essence the song remains the same.
What does ASLEF stand for?
Mick Rix is the top banana in the train drivers union, ASLEF; a tough-minded negotiator by all accounts, which is fair enough because that’s what he’s paid to do by his 15,553 members. But don’t be fooled into believing that the current rash of rail disputes is about some noble cause. Oh no, this is free market economics, red in tooth and claw, and Aslef is the trade union movement’s answer to David Beckham, only much less modern in its outlook.
Railway drivers are an elite group. While other trade unions have merged to create industry wide bargaining, ASLEF remains resolutely on its own, which makes sense from a narrow self-interest point of view since becoming part of a bigger bargaining group would dilute the drivers’ negotiating strength. So, ASLEF members pay some of the highest union contribution rates in the land, £17.77 a month, as the price of maintaining their independence.
Elsewhere, trade union have put aside old differences and looked to the future: Cohse, Nalgo and Nupe merged to form Unison, AEU and MSF tied the knot recently to re-emerge as Amicus, and the GMB and TGWU are engaged in a long courtship to create another new super union, which cynics predict will be called the G&T- union barons are part of the establishment nowadays, by and large, the class warriors are long gone.
Transport unions have also gone down this path. The NUR and NUS gave birth to the RMT some years ago, but Aslef won’t touch it with a bargepole as long as the good times continue to roll. Mick Rix called for national bargaining recently as the way to bring peace to a troubled industry, though he means bargaining in separate groups, not industry wide, so that train drivers can continue to hold employers and commuters to ransom. Of course, national bargaining is no answer at all if it simply ratchets up pay levels, regardless of productivity or the employer’s ability to pay, since unsustainably high fares will be the result.
Yet drivers are not amongst the ranks of the low paid-not by a long chalk! A driver’s job carries responsibility for public safety, admittedly, but involves relatively little training or skill compared to a nurse, for example. So, why are rail drivers paid more than twice as much as a newly qualified staff nurse who has studied for a minimum of three years?
The answer lies in poor management and lack of political leadership resulting in an industry that’s a terrible mess, as everyone knows. Successive governments have ducked long-term investment decisions and the public is now paying the price, but the culture of the railways needs a radical shake-up as well.
Incredibly, ASLEF can boast of only 373 women amongst the ranks of its members according to the TUC’ s web site. 2.4% explains a lot about the culture inside the union and since ASLEF operates pretty much as a closed shop, it also paints an accurate picture of the wider industry; backward looking, a stranger to equal opportunities and the notion that women might have the skills necessary to drive a train. Spelling out the union’s acronym sums things up rather neatly: ASLEF is the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen. What’s in a name? Quite a lot if you think about it.
Performance wise, there’s a good case for tying senior rail executives to their own tracks for allowing macho industrial relations to develop such a strong hold. ASLEF is merely exploiting the situation for all it’s worth, going back to the movement’s historical roots with a dose of old-fashioned trade union syndicalism. Issues of low pay elsewhere in the industry, within the RMT for example, are unimportant and the public interest barely registers on the union’s radar screen. It’s a dog eat dog world out there and no one is going to look at the world from the point of view of the long suffering, fare paying passenger.
So, these strikes are not about low pay, rapacious employers, or attacks on trade union rights and members interests. Instead, they’re about ASLEF exploiting a bargaining position that’s been reinforced by breathtaking incompetence from senior managers. Appealing to common sense or reason won’t make a blind bit of difference at this stage, hard-nosed thinking and a commitment to change is the only answer.
In a rational world, the government would move quickly to restore order to the present chaos. A modern public transport system will never be achieved with industrial relations that belong to the 19th century. Why invest billions if managers try to operate services by relying on drivers to work overtime, which is asking for trouble?
Big reforms are possible without attacking drivers or union rights. Compulsory arbitration ought to be high on Stephen Byers agenda as he fights for his political career and comes up with a cunning plan to get Labour off the ropes ahead of the next election.
Scotland’s first minister, Jack McConnell, got it right by describing industrial relations in the railways as ‘shocking’ in the 21st century, but government needs a strategy not just angry words.
Mark A. Irvine
January 2002
