Railway union workers industrial and strike action - 2022

[whole diary]

[grahame]

It is clear that some trains did run but that the disruption was significant.

Does anyone know if the disruption was as "good" as the RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) expected ? If the disruption was "better" than expected than that seems likely to encourage more strikes.

If however the strike was less effective than was hoped, then that might discourage more strikes.

The RMT will no doubt declare the strike a great success, and "the railway" will no doubt claim that they ran more services than expected, and hope to do even better in future strikes.

Are there any more independent views ?

Well - Transport Focus visited stations closed, open with just a single service, and open with rather more.  I don't know if you would consider these a success, but these are blindingly obvious findings:

At Cannon Street in London, which is closed, it was eerily quiet

An early-morning visit to Brighton revealed a much quieter station than normal and plenty of staff on hand for those passengers who were travelling.

Another colleague who visited Fleet station for us reported that it looked like most people had stayed away and reverted to working from home.

[nickswift99]

We can only hope that Her Majesty didn't fancy a night out in Slough tonight.

I can only hope for Her Majesty that a night on the Slough tiles is never on her agenda.

I'm fairly certain that the emergency marmalade sandwich would need deploying should she find herself stranded.

[grahame]

Following further on "how effective was the strike?"

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page)

One new factor in this rail strike was that many commuters are now set up to work from home if they need to.

So, although some bosses will no doubt have found it frustrating, it means the impact isn't as serious for some workers as it might have been in the past.

Frank Bird, a senior network planner at Highways England, said in the post-pandemic world people had come up with a much better Plan B when they can't get into work, and for many that means working from home rather than driving.

Long article, much more detail

[grahame]

I have renamed this topic from "RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) strike days announced" to "RMT strike days, June 2022" to reflect the strikes (at least the first one) actually taking place and the information about them all being within this topic.

[TaplowGreen]

The Mummy returns!

Good to see the old boy getting out and about on the picket line - still wearing the 1984 baseball cap too!

I'm sure the RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) are hoping it isn't an omen!

 

[1st fan]

I had a look at RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) earlier to see how things were going. Something that grabbed my attention was the train formations; there's a 2 car on the remnants of the CDF^» (Cardiff - next trains)-PMH route, and several 5 cars on intercity routes. A bit irritating when the operators are generally advising people to expect busy trains, on a day when the stock utilisation rate is well below the usual, but it's understandable that positioning stock for an optimal service start may be difficult today (and I've no idea what actual loadings have been like today). I hope the 5 car appearances on journeys serving Castle Cary don't persist later this week! Contrast with SWR^» (South Western Railway - about); a look at Waterloo shows almost exclusively maximum length 10/12 car trains.

I spoke to an ex colleague who now lives in an area where GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) don’t have service during strike days. He’s more than a little upset that the advice is don’t travel, he doesn’t have a train service to travel on and needs one to get to work*. However GWR are able to run several trains a day to “allow people to go to a music festival that doesn’t have any music playing for days”.

*If he’s a no show at his job he doesn’t get paid. Doesn’t believe that GWR have got their priorities straight as a result.

[grahame]

I had a look at RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) earlier to see how things were going. Something that grabbed my attention was the train formations; there's a 2 car on the remnants of the CDF^» (Cardiff - next trains)-PMH route, and several 5 cars on intercity routes. A bit irritating when the operators are generally advising people to expect busy trains, on a day when the stock utilisation rate is well below the usual, but it's understandable that positioning stock for an optimal service start may be difficult today (and I've no idea what actual loadings have been like today). I hope the 5 car appearances on journeys serving Castle Cary don't persist later this week! Contrast with SWR^» (South Western Railway - about); a look at Waterloo shows almost exclusively maximum length 10/12 car trains.

I spoke to an ex colleague who now lives in an area where GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) don’t have service during strike days. He’s more than a little upset that the advice is don’t travel, he doesn’t have a train service to travel on and needs one to get to work*. However GWR are able to run several trains a day to “allow people to go to a music festival that doesn’t have any music playing for days”.

*If he’s a no show at his job he doesn’t get paid. Doesn’t believe that GWR have got their priorities straight as a result.

It may be that GWR had no choice in the lack of services to your exColleague. As  I understand it, most of the places lacking GWR trains was the lack of Network Rail staff to keep the lines open.  The only exception was Melksham where the line was open - 4 trains each way on strike day - but they didn't stop them!

[didcotdean]

Bang goes even more public sympathy (to be fair, there was very little to lose)

A YouGov poll just released does indeed show more of the public 'oppose' the strikes than are 'for' them...but not by very much at all - a difference of just 8% in fact:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/rail-tubes-strikes-london-underground-oppose-support-new-poll-b1007535.html

As with any opinion poll, the results depend on the exact wording of the question, and possibly what is asked leading up to the question. A poll taken around the same time by a different pollster (ComRes) indicates 58% of people think the rail strikes are justified. Still finely balanced though.

[IndustryInsider]

Yes I agree. 

Some of yesterday’s media interviews with Mick Lynch verged on the ridiculous IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion) and made it ridiculously easy for him. 

I’m no fan, but by and large was fairly impressed with how he handled the media.  More so than Shapps anyway.

[1st fan]

I had a look at RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) earlier to see how things were going. Something that grabbed my attention was the train formations; there's a 2 car on the remnants of the CDF^» (Cardiff - next trains)-PMH route, and several 5 cars on intercity routes. A bit irritating when the operators are generally advising people to expect busy trains, on a day when the stock utilisation rate is well below the usual, but it's understandable that positioning stock for an optimal service start may be difficult today (and I've no idea what actual loadings have been like today). I hope the 5 car appearances on journeys serving Castle Cary don't persist later this week! Contrast with SWR^» (South Western Railway - about); a look at Waterloo shows almost exclusively maximum length 10/12 car trains.

I spoke to an ex colleague who now lives in an area where GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) don’t have service during strike days. He’s more than a little upset that the advice is don’t travel, he doesn’t have a train service to travel on and needs one to get to work*. However GWR are able to run several trains a day to “allow people to go to a music festival that doesn’t have any music playing for days”.

*If he’s a no show at his job he doesn’t get paid. Doesn’t believe that GWR have got their priorities straight as a result.

It may be that GWR had no choice in the lack of services to your exColleague. As  I understand it, most of the places lacking GWR trains was the lack of Network Rail staff to keep the lines open.  The only exception was Melksham where the line was open - 4 trains each way on strike day - but they didn't stop them!

I know that, you know that, but try telling him that.

[CyclingSid]

Be careful what comparisons you use?
https://twitter.com/SueSuezep/status/1539203545529991172?cxt=HHwWiICyhYferNwqAAAA

[TaplowGreen]

Paddington looking very quiet this morning, I doubt the same can be said for the roads heading to Glastonbury!

[ChrisB]

Be careful what comparisons you use?
https://twitter.com/SueSuezep/status/1539203545529991172?cxt=HHwWiICyhYferNwqAAAA

This os a better one!

https://twitter.com/rmtunion/status/1539645558016851969?s=21&t=gJiIRBM-UEGqsbMMw-_BWQ

[Electric train]

Be careful what comparisons you use?
https://twitter.com/SueSuezep/status/1539203545529991172?cxt=HHwWiICyhYferNwqAAAA

Certainly the MP^▸ (Member of Parliament)'s approach needs to be modernised, they have after all chosen not to vacate the Palace of Westminster to allow the quickest and most cost effective means of renovating the building instead they have chosen to keep to their old working practices of tea rooms and bars.   Don't get me started on the stalled devolution process and house of Lords, there should be a parliament for England with the house of Lords being the Federal Governance of the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) ............... but then its only the Railways that have out dated Victoria working practices 

[IndustryInsider]

Meanwhile the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) ASLEF^» (Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen - about) ballots have been issued, with votes to be returned no later than 11th July.  Should 'action short of a strike' or 'strike action' be voted for then it would be likely to commence in about a month from now.