Rail unions

Solidarity contributor Daniel Randall is seeking nominations for the London Transport seat on the National Executive Committee of the rail union RMT. The ballot will run 31 October to 4 December. Daniel has worked on the Tube as a Customer Service Assistant at Oxford Circus since 2014, has held several union positions, and is co-organiser of the Free Our Unions campaign . In his letter seeking nomination Daniel says he will work for “RMT’s culture of rank-and-file democracy [to be] deepened and extended, with as much power as possible in the hands of members, in the workplace”. He commits...

The decisions by the CWU, RMT, Aslef, and TSSA unions to call off strikes following the death of the Queen are a setback for those specific disputes, and for class struggle in general. Not one from which it will be impossible, or even necessarily difficult, to recover, but a setback nonetheless. Calling off strikes, especially without naming new dates in their place, saps momentum from disputes. CWU already had further action named on Royal Mail on 30 September and 1 October, which is still due to take place. Even with suspending their strikes (15 September for Aslef, 15/17 September for RMT...

Rail workers on fourteen train operating companies, Network Rail and London Underground have been taking strike action over the summer. On the national railway, they are demanding a pay rise to make up for two or three years without any increase, a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies, and no detriment to their working conditions. On London Underground – where there is already a contractual right not to be made compulsorily redundant and workers have had an inflation-plus pay rise this year – they are fighting against job cuts, threats to their pensions, and attacks on working conditions...

Solidarity contributor Daniel Randall is seeking nominations for the London Transport seat on the National Executive Committee of the rail union RMT. The ballot will run 31 October to 4 December. Daniel has worked on the Tube as a Customer Service Assistant at Oxford Circus since 2014, has held   several union positions, and is co-organiser of the Free Our Unions campaign. In his letter seeking nomination Daniel says he will work for “RMT’s culture of rank-and-file democracy [to be] deepened and extended, with as much power as possible in the hands of members, in the workplace”. He commits...

There’s a pretty clear consensus across the job that we need to strike again in response to the settlement with the government agreed by Transport for London (TfL) on 30 August that makes funding conditional on reforming pensions, holding down pay, making further operational cuts, and moving towards driverless trains. Let’s announce dates as soon as possible, and let’s escalate beyond 24 hours. How about two days in September, three in October, four in November…? With the cost-of-living crisis biting, we know a lot of us will feel the pinch, especially as Christmas approaches, but that can be...

Probably over a thousand people packed into the Save London Transport rally organised by the RMT on 31 August. The main hall at the TUC headquarters was packed, there was an overflow room and people were struggling to get in. No doubt a lot had come to see and hear left-wing US Senator Bernie Sanders. In addition to RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch, we also heard heard from John McDonnell MP, a CWU Royal Mail striker, a disability rights activist and representatives of sister London transport unions ASLEF, TSSA and Unite (among others). The turnout was not the only good thing about the rally...

It’s often the little things that get to you: not having the right equipment, no tech support when you need it, and management who don’t seem to care unless it’s on a computer screen and affects the "Key Performance Indicators". Just recently, we’ve had the spectacle of no lubricant available in our stores. For maintaining points, supplies a minimum requirement. Even though we’ve recently had no rain, which tends to wash the oil off, the need to lubricate is still there. In we come one night, and due to perform the points-lubrication maintenance. Before we left the depot I checked the back of...

The question of what a given strike’s exact demands are – and in some cases, whether it even has any specific demands – must also be contested by socialists seeking to develop rank-and-file independence. In the RMT’s disputes on national rail, the union says it is fighting for “a substantial pay rise”, without specifying a figure. This has allowed the media to run away with a casual remark by Mick Lynch noting that, at the time of the Network Rail pay anniversary, inflation was at 7%, and present as fact the claim that “RMT is asking for 7%”. The lack of a specific demand also enabled some RMT...