teachers' resolve to carry out this dispute to a successful conclusion.
NUR ballot defeat signals new dangers
Jimmy Knapp with Scots NUM's Eric Clarke: if NUR had fought harder alongside miners, their own fight would have been easier.
THE result of the ballot of guards over industrial action against driver-only operation (DOO) was a massive and completely unexpected setback for railworkers and for the whole fight for jobs. The guards have traditionally been one of the more militant sections of the NUR.
The immediate issue in the ballot was the British Rail Board's (BRB) plans to introduce DOO on trains with the eventual abolition of the grade of guard and the loss of all 11,500 guards" jobs. But the BRB said clearly that they saw the dispute as being not just over DOO, but as a means to smash the NUR's policy of general opposition to the BRB's plans for railworkers.
These include:
• "Flexible rostering" - having shifis of varying lengths instead of the sei 8-hour shifts — was introduced in 1982 afer the defeat of the two-week ASLEF strike against it. So far, drivers' and guards' shifts vary only between 7 and 9 hours, but the BRB want to increase flexibility of shifts to between 4 and 12 hours, and to introduce "split shifts" (4 hours on, 4 hours off, 4 hours on) which would make working hours even more unsocial.
By JEFF SLEE
• "Open Stations" — getting rid of all platform and ticket barrier staff at smaller stations.
• 1,000 redundancies proposed out of 8,000 jobs of S&T staff (those responsible for maintenance of signalling equipment).
• Further closure of workshops the proposed closure of Swindon workshops next March, the rundown of Glasgow workshops and reductions in other works would mean around 5,000 redundancies over the next two years on top of the 14,000 workshop jobs lost in the last 5 years. These closures arise from the contracting out of building and maintenance of locomotives, coaches and wagons, which was previously all done by BR workshops.
In the longer term, the main threats are:
• Privatisation of particular lines which can be hived off from the rest of the rail network, e.g. the Southend lines out of London Fenchurch St and the London Victoria to Gatwick express.
• Privatisation of major Socialist Viewpoint, No. 7, September 1985 Poge 15 maintenance work and other peripheral parts of the rail industry.
• Driverless trains - the trains on the Victoria line of the London Underground and on the Tyne & Wear Metro could already be run without drivers, and the BRB are investigating this.
Since 1983 the NUR's positions -to which the leadership has kept -has been "no talks with the BRB over productivity" . Following the ballot result this policy is ruined, and the recall conference is likely to reverse it.
Two factors at work within the railways undoubtedly contributed to the defeat.
Firstly, the high level of turnover of railworkers - even now - and the large number of railworkers nearing retiring age means that even large job losses on the "traffic" side (drivers, guards and platform staff) do not necessarily mean redundancies. The BRB, in all the leaflets and personal letters from managers that were put out, made a lot of the argument that early retirement could account for all the jobs lost; although they may now use their victory to try to get rid of militants and those with bad disciplinary records.