Will the rail strikes work in Boris Johnson’s favour?

The largest rail strike in a generation brought much of Britain’s train network to a standstill this week.

Led by the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), the walkout involved 40,000 staff employed by the infrastructure owner Network Rail and 13 train operating companies. The first strike, which also included 10,000 London Underground workers, was held on Tuesday; a further two were scheduled for Thursday and Saturday.

The dispute centred on below-inflation pay rises and likely redundancies. The RMT is seeking a pay rise of at least 7% with no job losses. Boris Johnson called for a “sensible compromise” and urged union leaders to agree to reforms such as phasing out ticket offices, saying the rail network would “go bust” if it didn’t modernise.

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The leader of the Trades Union Congress warned that industrial action could spread to other services if the Government failed to back further wage rises. Other unions considering, or launching, strike action include those representing teachers, doctors, nurses, local government staff, postal workers, traffic wardens and criminal barristers.

What the editorials said

Restarting lunch breaks if a manager so much as says hello; counting all Sunday shifts as overtime; refusing to use automated scanners to check railway tracks.

“Anyone sane” would ditch these so-called Spanish practices, said The Sun, but RMT boss Mick Lynch is willing to “wreak havoc on the nation” to protect them.

The RMT’s high pay demands and obstinate opposition to efficiency measures make “no economic sense”, said The Times. The pandemic has shifted commuting patterns, reducing demand for trains as more people work from home. The industry has to adapt and become more streamlined.

The RMT’s pay demands are hardly outrageous when inflation is set to reach 11% this year, said The Guardian. Like other key workers, rail staff have seen the value of their wages fall in real terms over recent years. “The average teacher, even before the recent spurt in inflation, is paid 8% less than a decade ago.”

It’s true that an offer of a 2-3% rise “hardly looks generous” in the circumstances, said the FT, but the Government is rightly nervous of unleashing a 1970s-style wage-price spiral. In the case of the RMT, there is clearly “a deal to be done”: an improved offer, in exchange for union “concessions on productivity and modernisation”.

What the commentators said

This week’s strikes – and the ones that are likely to follow – are most “convenient” for Boris Johnson, said Andrew Marr in The New Statesman. What better way to win back “middle-class southern commuting voters and Red-Wallers”, and to torment the shadow cabinet, than by waging an old-fashioned battle with the unions? Already ministers are talking of “Labour’s train strikes”, despite the fact that the RMT isn’t affiliated with the party and Labour doesn’t officially support them; next they’ll be talking about “Labour’s inflation”. Just you wait.

This tactic might not work so well at a time when Britain is facing a cost-of-living crisis, said Mattie Brignal on Reaction. “It’s one thing arguing that rail workers have decent salaries compared to equivalent professions. Teachers and nurses are a different story.” The attempts to paint Mick Lynch as some crazed Bolshevik won’t work, said Simon Kelner in The i Paper. He comes across as a “calm, pragmatic man��. If train passengers are cross with anyone today, it’s not with union leaders or ordinary rail workers, it’s with rail company managers who put the interests of shareholders before those of passengers. Let’s not forget that executives on the LNER and Northern Rail board happily awarded themselves a 6% pay rise last year.

Union leaders are not the bogeymen of yore, said Bagehot in The Economist. Most voters have no memory of 1970s militancy and will approach the unions’ demands with an open mind. Moreover, the pay demands in any “summer of discontent” are likely to be “tame” compared with those made back in the 1970s. In 1972, when inflation was about 7%, miners demanded a 25% pay increase – and got it. Still, today’s union barons should tread carefully. “The history of Britain’s trade-union movement is one of formidable organisations brought low by hubris and misjudgment.”

Tory strategists will be hoping that all the disruption caused by this week’s strikes erodes public support for industrial action, said Chris Smyth in The Times. But if this and other disputes drag on for months, the Government will cop the blame as much as the unions. Attacking strikes is easy; failing to resolve them is dangerous. “Just ask Ted Heath.”

What next?

The Government has reintroduced plans to change the law so that agency staff can be hired to replace strikers. The change could be achieved by mid-July via a reform to secondary legislation. A similar plan was introduced under David Cameron in 2015, but later abandoned amid claims that it was unworkable.

The Treasury confirmed this week that the state pension and benefits will rise next April in line with double-digit inflation. Asked how this could be justified, given the Government’s warning about the inflationary effect of raising public-sector pay in the same way, No. 10 said that pensioners were disproportionately affected by high energy costs.