DEFEND JOBS, PAY AND CONDITIONS – TRAIN OPERATING COMPANIES AND NETWORK RAIL
28 June 2022
Dear RMT Member
DEFEND JOBS, PAY AND CONDITIONS – TRAIN OPERATING COMPANIES AND NETWORK RAIL
I am writing to congratulate and thank you for the magnificent show of unity and solidarity that you all displayed last week during our first phase of industrial action in the current national rail dispute.
During the last few weeks, we have been involved in detailed discussions with both Network Rail and the Train Operators on the issues in the dispute.
The union’s position has been based on our demands stated previously:
A guarantee of No Compulsory Redundancies
No detrimental changes to working practices and/or terms and conditions imposed.
A substantial increase in pay
I have to report to you that during these discussions both Network Rail and the Train Operators have taken an extremely hard line, we believe at the behest of the Government in order to push through their agenda of £2bn of cuts and what they call “Workforce Reform”.
Across the two sections of the industry the companies are challenging all of our agreements, proposing mass job cuts and we have rejected their pay proposals which have thus far amounted to a staged 3% conditional offer based on accepting their whole change agenda.
The agenda of change the companies have put to us so far includes:
Train Operators
Closures of ticket offices across the country and the combination of retail, customer services and operational roles at stations.
Revising the role and responsibility of the guard/conductor/train manager along with revisions to catering grades’ role.
7-day working as mandatory in all train operators.
New grading structures, salaries and roles
Lower pay, longer hours contracts
Proposals on the Railway Pension Scheme that will change retirement age, contributions and benefits, diluting value while paying more.
Network Rail
A complete restructure of the Maintenance function with fundamental changes to working practices, rostering, competency, organisation and other measures.
Productivity and technology measures for signallers.
Stations – there remains lack of clarity on the future role of Network Rail station staff in the plans of the two halves of the sector.
All of this is underpinned by an as yet un-stated number of job cuts in both sections of the industry and both sets of companies are adamant that the railways will be cheaper to run and that terms & conditions must be diluted across the board.
Further to this, the value of any pay proposals that may be proposed will be tiny compared to the levels of price inflation our members have been experiencing in the recent years of pay freezes and going forwards.
We face a very tough period of negotiations and it is clear that our campaign will be an extended one and that we will all have to dig-in and be resolute.
We will negotiate but we will also be prepared to take sustained industrial action in a controlled way to deliver a square deal for our members across the railway.
We understand that change comes to any industry, but those changes need to be in a framework of agreement and not imposed at the cost of highly detrimental changes to our conditions and the continual shrinkage of wages.
So I can call on all members to prepare themselves for an extensive campaign. This Union will not waste your energy and commitment to the cause so we will take a disciplined and controlled approach to any industrial action.
There is strong public support for our concerns over pay and jobs and other rail unions are likely to be taking action alongside us and I sense that in the country as a whole there is a groundswell of renewed union activity that will continue to mount the pressure for a fair deal for all workers.
Please keep up your support. I will update you as regularly as possible and thank you again for being an RMT member.
