Our weekend with friends (friends is a very small word for the love I feel for these people) in deepest Yorkshire represented the nearest thing to heaven I know. World class scenery, a beautiful cottage next to Ribblehead station, world class laughter, a heady mix of nine different pubs and did I mention laughter? Could anything ruin it? No, but the RMT union did its best.
Train drivers have been on strike on Noethern Rail on the majority of Saturdays since August. This means that a small handful of services are running for people who want to work, need to run their businesses, want to meet family and friends, have come to the area for leisure. There must be a good reason for the strikes, right?
RMT has instructed – not asked or requested – its members take strike action on Saturdays. The union objects to a simple change in work practices which involves drivers being responsible for opening and closing train doors and not guards and ticket inspectors. Guards and ticket inspectors will still ride on trains, but drivers will operate the doors. This will make Northern Rail operate on the same basis of 30% of the rest of the network and the London Underground. The RMT thinks this is dangerous, but presumably only on 70% 0f the network. Hmm. Every single person I spoke to, including railway staff, volunteers and fellow passengers, saw the story for what it really is: RMT is trying to get extra money for its drivers. RMT has literally no support.
To all intents and purposes, your average train driver earns circa £53k a year for what is basically a four day week. They get paid an arm and a leg on top of this generous salary for working weekends. For someone like me, who might take a decade to earn a sum like this, I am hardly impressed.
We were going to Skipton for the day on the Saturday but there were no trains at all. Instead, we went to Appleby and spend eight hours there until the only train came back. Our weekend, happily, was not ruined but many weekends were, many businesses were hammered. Meanwhile, the aptly named, fabulously well rewarded Mick Cash, general secretary of RMT, was blaming everyone else for the fact his highly paid members were on strike. He was sorry for the inconvenience HE was causing people. Was he heck!
Full disclosure: I was frequently involved in failed strike action when I was an official with the CPSA union, usually about pay. We told the public our campaigns were all about quality services, we regretted the fact that people were getting their benefits late. It was all rubbish. The public were collateral damage. It was all about us. It was our way of minimising the criticism we might get.
At heart, I am a union man. I believe in trade unions, I believe we are stronger together than we are as individuals. I don’t support the RMT, though, and having seen the misery their well fed train drivers have caused to so many people, they should get back to the negotiating table and come to an early agreement with Northern Rail. Unusually, the strong and powerful in this instance are well paid workers and the weak and disenfranchised are everyone else.
