By an RMT member SIGNAL workers voted overwhelmingly to accept offers made by Railtrack after a week of complicated negotiation. Their return to work after over three months of strikes is clearly not a defeat —but is it a victory?
The executive certainly feel that the deal is a victory -they voted unanimously to recom mend its acceptance. According to the negotiation the offer includes new money on the table above and beyond even the original 5.7% "offer that never was". They argue that Railtrack's public presentation of the offer underplayed it in order to save Tory embarrassment at their The offer give all signalworkers an increase in basic pay of between 20-30%. This is paid for however with the loss of significant bonuses.
A whole new range of "flexible" working practices are to be introduced. More positively, the working week is reduced and Sundays are still to be treated separately - though with smaller overtime premium rates.
The end result is a package far less stringent than was expected before the dispute, but one that introduces some of the new practices to which signalworkers have objected.
It is not surprising therefore that many signalworker activists feel let down.
From the start of the dispute the union leadership dragged its Decisions of the Executive were never implemented, or only partially and late. The London demonstration was a good example. Weeks after it was agreed the union had not even decided a venue.
When it had eventually been agreed, branches received only a handful of leaflets - six in most cases. And this one week before it was due.
Escalation
The timing of the strike varied over one or two days. Different start times were imaginative and effective. But the issue of escalation was never resolved.
This issue should be approached with caution. Discussing an ecalation to an all out stoppage was important but signalworkers were far from convinced. As a demand on the RMT executive it was a non-starter: without first winning the deBy an LUL train operator THE OCTOBER 7 RMT strike on London Underground was only partially successful, since although we disrupted the service, we were not strong enough to force total closure of the system.
The media of course churned out management's claims of a 75% service, which is total nonsense.
During the afternoon shift, workers it would have broken the strike.
Far more practically important was the call for widening the dispute to other grades. Pressure was mounting from the grass roots - up to and including a unanimous proposal from Traincrew Grades officers -that all guards and drivers be instructed to stop work. The strike committee had not discussed the matter when the ACAS talks recommenced.
Railtrack did make a significant climbdown - but so did the RMT.
Signalworkers can be proud of their fight, and have come out of the dispute in a stronger position than they would have got without a fight: but they have still lost out.
Tube strike a step forward my picket line was highly amused by the Evening Standard headline "Tube Strike Collapses"; outside we could see a depot half full of trains and trains that were stuck at signals for 25 minutes!
In the station booking hall behind us a primitive socialist ticketing system was in operation -passengers who had finished with their tickets left them on a ledge, while passengers arriving without tickets rooted through them for something suitable!
Nonetheless strike action among station staff was disappointing; management managed M Slow to spread fight: RMT's Jimmy Knapp However the drive to railway privatisation has been seriously damaged. At last a group of workers has confronted the government and come out undefeated.
It is possible to take on the Tories. That lesson must be taken up by other public sector workers in their battles to come. to open nearly every station. TSSA staff continued working, and management used people on six month contracts who were too scared to strike.
They also used a skeleton staff to keep signals working, with various degrees of success from line to line.
RMT has about 40% of train drivers and not all of them supported the strike, although some ASLEF members did respect the picket lines.
"At least we had a go" was the general view, combined with disgust at the way that other unions, especially ASLEF, had cancelled their own strike ballots at the last