Reference no: EM133307466

Assignment: The rail disputes (2016-17)

In 2016 two disputes affecting the London Underground and Southern Railways arose. Once again, there were questions about the state of employment relations and the power of trade unions, and both disputes illustrate the role of rules within the ER system. The first dispute involving the RMT union and London Transport is about the decision of London Transport to eliminate some 800 ticket office staff and to close a number of underground ticket offices. Mick Cash, leader of the RMT union, is reported to have said:

It has now also been shown that at management level there is agreement with the union that the cuts have been a disastrous mistake and that the staff need to be put back on the stations

The union representing the Underground office staff, TSSA, said:

TSSA members on London Underground are set to take strike at the weekend after another round of talks with London Underground (LU) and Advice & Conciliation Advisory Service (ACAS) have again failed to make any progress to resolve our dispute about severe ongoing and increasing dangerous understaffing of the Tube following the 800 job cuts made by London's Tory Mayor, Boris Johnson, shortly before he left office in May last year.

Management have admitted that too many jobs have been cut too quickly and have agreed to hire more staff to man stations, but the unions want a bigger recruitment drive and are continuing to call strikes and apply an overtime ban.

The question is why are the two unions taking industrial action? Is it because of the job cuts, which represent a change in substantive rules on employment levels, or is it because of safety concerns linked to the office closures? Changes in rules governing numbers employed and changes in working conditions are common causes of industrial action.

In the case of Southern Railways and the RMT and ASLEF unions, the reason for the ongoing dispute is different. No job losses are involved and neither guards nor drivers will lose money or job security; this dispute is about rules governing 'who does what'. The company has proposed that drivers take over responsibility for closing train doors, using new technology that has been approved by the safety regulator. But the unions are opposing moving this responsibility from guards to drivers on safety grounds.

The point of this HRM Insight is that in ER making new rules creates its own set of challenges but so does changing existing rules where the proposed changes affect trade union representation and interests. We might say that industries where trade unions enjoy recognition and negotiating rights are those where change driven by management and linked to technological or financial considerations is likely to be resisted by the unions because of the real or perceived threat that the change poses to the union itself and/or its members. The desire and ability to resist change, however, rests largely on the power of the unions and their particular ideology. Both are key variables in any ER system, and its distribution between employers/managers and trade unions/workers can help to explain the behavior of the main actors in the system.

Question 1: What rules had changed and why did the unions oppose them?
Question 2: Are both disputes about rail safety or preserving existing terms and conditions of work?
Question 3: Why are the unions able to resist the changes management wanted to introduce?
Question 4: What options dose management have in both disputes to introduce the changes they believe are necessary and justified?