A Conservative majority government will stop railways grinding to
a halt by ensuring that a minimum train service must operate
during strikes. This comes less than 24 hours after Shadow
Chancellor confirmed that it is
policy to bring back
secondary picketing which would allow ‘sympathy strikes’ and a
dramatic increase in disruption on our railways.
For too long, militant rail unions have caused misery for
passengers up and down the country. Since 2016, more than
160 days of strikes have taken place, or are planned,
hitting 11 out of the country’s 17 rail franchises, plus
London’s Underground.
One of the country’s busiest commuter networks, South
Western Railway, will strike for almost the entire month of
December.
The Conservatives believe we need a new balance between
rail workers’ right to strike and other workers’ right to go to
work.
A Conservative majority government would:
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Legislate to oblige rail employers and unions to
enter into Minimum Service Agreements.
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MSAs would set in advance the number and nature of staff
who would remain at work during any strike. In the absence of
an MSA, strike action would not be lawful.
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This means that there would never be a situation where
there are no trains running, even during industrial
action.
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Similar provisions exist in many European countries,
including Spain, France, Italy and Belgium. The minimum service
level varies between a fifth and a third of normal
service.
Commenting, , Transport Secretary,
said:
“Rail strikes have a real impact on people’s lives. They
seriously inconvenience businesses and the public, damage the
economy, and force people to use less sustainable means of
transport.
“Corbyn’s union backers are causing misery for commuters
across the country but this is just a taste of things to come if
he gets into Downing Street. He would scrap trade union
legislation and make it easier for unions to go on strike which
would cause chaos for passengers.
“The Conservative Party will introduce a new law to ensure
that the railways keep on running even if trade unions vote to go
on strike. Only the Conservatives can get Brexit done, improve
our public services, and stop passengers being held hostage by
Corbyn’s Labour and the Unions.”
ENDS
For further information, please contact the Press Office on
020 7984 8121.
Notes to Editors:
-
We would legislate to oblige rail employers and
unions to enter into Minimum Service
Agreements, which would oblige both
parties to operate minimum service levels in the event of
strike action. MSAs would set in advance the number and nature
of staff who would remain at work during any strike.
-
If the MSA is not honoured, the strike would not
be lawful. As with any illegal
strike, the employer could obtain an injunction to halt it.
There would be no sanctions against individual workers.
-
Similar provisions exist in many other European
countries, including Spain, France,
Italy, Belgium and Estonia, and in a few other common-law
jurisdictions, notably South Africa. The minimum service level
varies between a fifth and a third of the normal
service.
Strikes are hitting
passengers…
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Industrial action on the railways has escalated
since 2016. More than 160 days of
strikes have taken place over the period, or are planned,
including 47 days at Northern, 40 at Southern, and 16 each at
Merseyrail and Scotrail.
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On South Western Railway, 27 days of strikes are
planned in December, removing service on all but two days of
the month. West Midlands Trains is
currently striking on Saturdays in the run-up to Christmas.
There have also been strikes on Greater Anglia, East Coast,
Great Western, CrossCountry, West Coast, Eurostar, and the
London Underground.
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Last year, transport workers struck over three
times more than the UK average. 9 working
days were lost per 1,000 employees overall, but in the
transport sector it was 30 days per 1,000 employees.
(ONS, Link)
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Simon French, chief economist at the investment
bank Panmure Gordon, said a 24-hour Tube strike in January 2017
cost London £90m. Strikes by Tube
and rail staff cost the capital £500m in 2016-17, [Sunday
Times, 16th December 2018, Archived)
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Taxpayers were forced to foot a £38 million
bill for the cost of disruptive
strikes on Southern.
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Most of the strikes were about drivers opening
and closing train doors, which rail
unions have claimed is “a lethal gamble with passenger safety.”
However, about a third of trains on the national network – and
every train on the Underground – already operate safely without
guards.
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The Rail Safety and Standards Board has said: “We
have 30 years of data which we have
analysed. We have found that the
driver performing the task [of opening and closing the doors]
does not increase the risk to passengers at all.”
Conservative record
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We acted in the Trade Union Act 2016 to protect
people from undemocratic strike
action, requiring all strike ballots
to achieve at least a 50% turnout of eligible union members,
with a majority voting in favour of strike action.
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In important public services - including in the
health, education and transport sectors - we have set an
additional threshold of 40% of
support from all eligible members
for action to be legal.
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Conservative policies – including the 2016 Act –
have helped to reduce disruptive strike
action. In 2018 there were 273,000
working days lost due to labour disputes, the sixth-lowest
annual total since records began in (ONS,
May 2019, link)
Labour will run the railways for
unions, not
passengers
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Labour will make strikes much more likely to
happen by removing the threshold needed for industrial
action. The Labour manifesto says
that a Corbyn Government will ‘Remove unnecessary restrictions
on industrial action’ and will ‘Repeal anti-trade union
legislation including the Trade Union Act 2016’. The 2016 Act
introduced a majority threshold for strike action, including
a minimum threshold for approval of
industrial action in key public services like education, fire
and transport. Repeal will, therefore, result in many more
strikes – NB that the education sector accounted for 66% of all
working days lost in 2018 (ONS, May 2019, link).
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Labour will give militant trade union officials
far more powers to disrupt
businesses. The manifesto also
states that it will ‘Strengthen and enforce trade unions’ right
of entry to workplaces to organise, meet and represent their
members and to recruit’. It also says that it
will ‘set up special trade union courts,
arbitrating on all workplace issues’ (emphasis
added).
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Labour
will introduce a ‘legal
right to collective consultation on the implementation of new
technology in
workplaces’. This
will make it much harder for companies to modernise and will
prevent the roll-out of new technology.
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Two of the main rail unions, Aslef and the TSSA,
are affiliated to, and core funders of, the ; the RMT, though not
affiliated, strongly supports local Labour candidates and
Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. Corbyn has supported almost all
rail strikes; he is on the side of the unions, not
passengers.
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Labour will end driver-only operation of
trains, imposing significant new
costs on passengers and extending the RMT's power to disrupt
services to the thousands of trains operating now on a
driver-only basis.
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Labour will place militant union representatives
on the board of its proposed
nationalised rail company.
