THE escalating campaign to stop ticket office closures has potential to mobilise whole communities against the government.
More, by engaging a wide range of social justice organisations — from Disabled People Against Cuts to End Violence Against Women — in a campaign that is at its core industrial, RMT points the way to the strategies we will need to break the vicious anti-union legislation that passed its final hurdle in the Commons today.
The Tory war on ticket offices is an act of social vandalism. Like previous demands — forced by ministers on rail operating companies during negotiations over pay and conditions with RMT last year — that the union accept sweeping cuts to maintenance roles, it shows the Tories have no interest in the future of Britain’s rail network.
The sector is subjected to managed decline.
No matter that it is by far the greenest form of mass transit, and must be at the heart of the public transport revolution required if Britain is to seriously reduce emissions.
No matter that China, the world leader in high-speed rail, has demonstrated its effectiveness at reducing domestic flights; or even that US President Joe Biden has earmarked tens of billions of dollars for investment in rail, saying: “Guess what? If you can get in a train and go … much faster than in an automobile, you take the train. We will take literally millions of automobiles off the road.”
The Tories don’t care. Britain’s infrastructure can rust away or be passed to speculators happy to discard it and the country itself once they have squeezed every penny out. The same logic that drove Royal Mail’s war on postal workers last year has long been at work on the railways.
It has resulted in the most expensive rail system in Europe, and one of the slowest. Increasingly it is also one of the least reliable, as operators out for a quick buck cut every corner so each unexpected eventuality, from a sick member of staff to an obstacle on the tracks, causes cancellations. Then the Tories turn round and say passenger numbers have fallen, and this justifies further attacks on the network.
The attack on ticket offices is partly an attack on a unionised sector. But as the coalition being assembled by RMT indicates, it is also an attack on disabled people and pensioners, who will find it harder to travel by rail; on women, at greatest risk of attack on unstaffed stations; and everyone struggling to navigate a system blighted by bewildering variations in journey prices.
Communities are coming together in defence of ticket offices, as shown earlier this week, when five Labour metro mayors launched a legal challenge. This is an issue a town or city can be mobilised around. Indeed, in north-east England Jamie Driscoll’s plans for a better integrated and improved public transport network are behind much of the local enthusiasm for his independent candidacy.
Alliance-building across localities like this will be key to derailing the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act.
This draconian legislation allows employers to order staff to break their own picket lines — but as with the fight to save ticket offices, strikes in health or education are about the future of the service, not just jobs or pay.
Demonstrations of public support for industrial action can be an effective deterrent to employers, undermining the legislation and helping set the scene for its repeal.
They can also be platforms to force a different, more positive agenda onto the political scene.
We should be investing in rail. We should be employing more staff, scheduling more trains and cutting prices to attract more passengers.
Analogous cases are there to be made for our schools, our NHS, a host of local facilities from libraries to parks. With Westminster shutting its ears, it will take a trade union-led popular movement to change the political weather.
