By Andy Silvester
In days past, newspapers had a tried-and-tested way of covering rail strikes. The key element was the photo spread of suit-and-tie workers in unusual situations – perhaps one had got the boat in for the first time, or cycled in on their child’s bike. Combine that with a few snaps of Wimbledon-esque queues to get on the bus at Waterloo or Liverpool Street and you could call it a day.
Things, of course, have changed. When union bosses call a strike today, there’s no need for anybody working in the banks of Canary Wharf or the insurers of the City to struggle on to nautical transport, nor for FTSE-100 CEOs tootling into work on a scooter. Because they now work from home.
Faced with this predicament, rail unions have been forced – as they see it – to up the ante. Far from thinking that these changes might predicate a change in their behaviour or their demands, the RMT have doubled down – pretending as if the last two years didn’t happen, even down to their failure to mention the extraordinary taxpayer subsidy that kept his members in their jobs throughout the pandemic and beyond. Rather than conciliation, they are instead choosing the tactic most likely to hurt working people that they pretend to care about: lower-paid staff in public-facing jobs.
The week before Christmas could not be more vital to hospitality and retail businesses. They have faced more than two years of pandemic-induced lockdowns, and are now dealing with runaway inflation in their cost base and a customer base that is minding the pennies. Those other people who need to go into work – security guards and various others, few of whom are paid anywhere close to Mick Lynch’s wage – will also be forced to struggle in.
Many firms will go to the wall this winter. Not just because of rail strikes – but they don’t help, and strikes the week before Christmas feels particularly vicious. That the RMT have chosen those days to strike lays bare their motives; this isn’t a class struggle, standing up for the ordinary man – it’s plain greed.
And if pubs close, and shops shutter, what ends up happening? People don’t come into cities anymore – and don’t need the railways. No doubt Mick Lynch will still be enjoying his newfound fame, but we’re not sure his members will.
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