Rail workers on the Avanti West Coast rail line have been forced into strike action by the rising cost of living. Most train drivers have had no pay increase since 2019, while inflation continues to soar. Negotiations have stalled as the Department for Transport, headed by minister Grant Shapps, sets the limits on public funding for rail operators and has effectively refused to sign off on any further pay rises. The Tory government is determined to reduce the workforce, increasing the rate of exploitation of the remainder in work and replacing workers with electronics such as ticket machines in place of ticket offices. Strike action organised by RMT, ASLEF and TSSA for 1 and 5 October will target 13 companies in all.
The West Coast rail line carries trains between Scotland and London. When British Rail was privatised, 25 franchises were created, reduced to 17 by mergers with four now back in public ownership. The west coast franchise has had several owners: Virgin Trains from 1997, Arriva briefly in November 2019 and now Avanti West Coast Partnership (First Group 70%; Trenitalia 30%) since December 2019. Originally the franchise was scheduled to run until March 2030 and was also set to operate the initial High Speed 2 services from 2026 but as passenger demand fell due to the Covid-19 pandemic the Tory government suspended franchising, abolished it in 2020 and converted franchises into concessions.
In a socialist society travel would be an essential public service guaranteed by the state, but capitalism turns travel into a commodity, brimming with surplus value, attracting a plethora of companies competing to realise part of that value as their own private profit. The government paid Avanti £17m over two years (2019-2021) including £4m in bonuses, the rest in management fees, for an abysmal service rated the worst on the rail network, with high-priced tickets and more than 50,000 complaints. They currently provide one train per hour instead of the normal three and failed to issue full timetables over the August bank holiday weekend.
In agreement with government intention to reduce the workforce, Avanti has failed to recruit new drivers and relied heavily on overtime working to fill the gaps, outrageously calling failure to work overtime ‘unofficial industrial action’ and using this as an excuse to reduce its timetable. ASLEF rightly accuses Avanti of lying. Phil Whittingham, Avanti’s managing director resigned on 15 September over the continuing chaos.
When running for Tory leader, Liz Truss said that she will legislate to prohibit strikes on ‘essential public services like railways’. The stakes are high, yet the British labour movement is vacillating. Keen to stay respectable, the unions’ original plans for strikes in September were suspended until October ‘as a mark of respect’ following the death of the Queen. Andy Burnham, Labour Party Metro Mayor for Greater Manchester, echoing shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh, issued an ‘ultimatum’ to Avanti that unless they reveal a plan for the restoration of London-Manchester services by the first week of September he would call for the termination of their contract, due to renew in October. He also asked for First Class carriages to be temporarily scrapped to create more room on the trains. Such measures would still not be enough to address the root causes of the rot in the privatised rail service. However, despite these modest conditions not being met, Burnham has yet to follow through on his ‘ultimatum’. Decent public transport cannot be won through empty threats.
Victory to the rail workers!
Pete Lynch
