The idea that the government had somehow managed to draw a line under the rail strikes by offering drivers and other staff a fat pay rise with no conditions attached even managed to fool the former Tory rail minister Huw Merriman, who declared in August: ‘I can understand why the new government have decided to cut a deal to end the uncertainty and move on with goodwill.’
There are more than 60 metro systems around the world that run without drivers
Goodwill? That didn’t even last a day as Aslef celebrated the award of a pay rise for drivers by announcing a further round of strikes on LNER, this time over rostering. Those were cancelled after the government expressed outrage, but that hasn’t stopped Mick Lynch’s Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union coming back for more. Any minister who thought that train drivers might just be happy with salaries of almost £60,000 a year has been cruelly deceived: the RMT’s Tube drivers voted on Tuesday to reject the offer. Londoners now face Tube strikes throughout the autumn – so much for a fresh start under a new government.
At the same time, Unison is balloting local government workers and staff at the Office for National Statistics (ONS), represented by the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), who have voted to strike over demands that they return to the office for just two days a week – a threat which they first made under the previous government. The idea that we now have a ‘grown-up’ government with a mature and less combative relationship with trade unions has been blown out of the water. The more militant unions will keep on pushing for higher wages until they are earning in excess of the craven MPs who are bowing before them. In fact, with overtime, some Tube drivers are already achieving this.
You can deal rationally with some unions, but not with the likes of the RMT and Aslef. They have just proven that by treating the government with contempt. They were awarded everything they said they wanted – pay rises with no agreement to accept more productive working arrangements in return – and yet all it has done is to embolden them to come back for more. Worse, they have more power now than they did in the last months of Rishi Sunak’s government, as they are no longer bound by legislation to provide minimum service levels on strike days.
There will be a big opportunity here for the Conservatives, if they are prepared to seize it. All Tory leadership candidates in recent weeks have dropped in a word about Margaret Thatcher – Robert Jenrick, we learn, has even given his daughter the middle name ‘Thatcher’.
But if they really want to emulate her, they should reflect on what she would now be doing, were she Prime Minister. She would be stockpiling old buses in preparation for a final showdown with the Tube drivers. When they refused a pay offer, she wouldn’t just sit on her hands like the last Tory government did. She would already be making secret plans to automate the Tube and do away with Tube drivers altogether. There are more than 60 metro systems around the world that run without them. When the plan to automate jobs was announced, the unions would almost inevitably call an indefinite strike – at which point the mothballed buses would be brought out to maintain a Tube replacement service until the work to automate the Tube was complete. Then, when the work was done, we would have a more reliable, cheaper and strike-proof Underground.
Boris Johnson did once or twice threaten to automate the Tube, but in office he failed to do so. By the time the current government is finished, we will be back in 1979, with a public that is absolutely sick of the antics of the unions and is eager to vote for a party which promises to take them on. Whoever wins the Conservative party leadership needs to be ready to seize the opportunity.
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