Which Train Driver Union?

[phil-b259]

You should have SOME sympathy for mr crow, he has been dead for almost 4 years!

 

To be fair, he never actually wanted sympathy. Respect from his members seems about all that mattered to him.

 

See

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/dec/13/bob-crow-strikes-rmt-union

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bob-crows-top-10-quotes-3229344

https://jacobinmag.com/2017/05/bob-crow-rmt-trade-union-rail-workers-labour-party-socialist

[phil-b259]

 

As for Southern depots, I wouldn't say the Southern was more NUR, rather the opposite. There's odd depots all over the country with a strong NUR membership mostly for historic reasons, but ASLEF has always been the preference for staff in line of promotion to driver.  TSSA has always been for admin and clerical staff, but they had the choice to join the NUR as well. 

 

I'm led to believe that thanks to ASLEF making a deal with Southern, there are quite a few drivers that have moved Unions as a result of this 'Betrayal' of their 'brothers' in the RMT and are now represented by said Union.

 

Note this is NOT an excuse to start a debate on whether you think they are right in that judgement or not!

 

Ironically I believe they are only able to do this as a result of Thatchers reforms which ended the closed shop setup and gave total freedom to belong to whatever Union you wished (or none at all of course) - even if the Union you joined wasn't the one recognised by the company for purposes of collective bargaining etc.

 

I'm not sure how much of a difference this has made - even in the latest strike most Southern routes had a near normal service.

[darrel]

I quit ASLEF a year ago and joined RMT. Mainly because senior officials in ASLEF at least in my part of the country are an out of touch, unelected, undemocratic old boys club who rule by harassment. When I quit I sent screen shots of the abusive messages that had been sent to me. I didn't even receive a reply. RMT have been much better.

No regrets over quitting after 20 years in ASLEF.

[royaloak]

To be fair, he never actually wanted sympathy. Respect from his members seems about all that mattered to him.

 

See

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/dec/13/bob-crow-strikes-rmt-union

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bob-crows-top-10-quotes-3229344

https://jacobinmag.com/2017/05/bob-crow-rmt-trade-union-rail-workers-labour-party-socialist

In real life he was very different from his television persona which was very much playing to the crowd, I only got to speak with him once (over a pint naturally) and he was a very knowledgeable person and was a great loss to the RMT Union when he passed away.

 

He was a damn good negotiator, and I mean negotiator, he didnt just bang his fists on the table demanding this, that and the other, he could really negotiate and was more than willing to give a little to gain a little.

[E3109]

(In my opinion) they should've merged decades ago.

There was some spat around 1914 between the two unions, and I don't think either union have ever got over it.

 

Very condensed version, I've been a member of each. 

 

I don't wish to elaborate! 

 

As unions go, both ASLEF and RMT are pretty good at what they do.

I'm no rabid leftie by any means, but what I will say is if you're considering joining the railway industry, my advice would be to definitely join up. The railway unions (inc TSSA) are better than most.

[big jim]

i was in RMT as a guard and am now in aslef, as E3109 says they are both pretty good as what they do for the various grades

 

ive no interest in the day to day running of the union from head office down to branch level, never been to any branch meetings, dont think ive ever voted in any elections even half heartedly flick through the journal, mainly to see whos retired or died, but i wouldnt want to be without someone on my side should things go wrong, which is what i pay for the privelage for, i have thought about a switch back to RMT on a number of occasions but always end up deciding to stick with aslef

 

i had an incident at a previous company and had aslef represent me at the hearing and i came out the end of it still being able to drive trains with a clean record, without union representation from someone who understands the job from the front end i dont know where id be now had they not been there

[The Stationmaster]

Any union is only as good as its reps and District Officers - simple as that.  Generally since privatisation ASLEF has done a far better job for its membership than the RMT and that was initially down to having an excellent General Secretary at the time of privatisation who spent the rest of hist time in office working hard on behalf of his members and sometimes trying to dissuade various of them out of the 'jam today' deals being offered to them by hotshot (almost) managers who would be gone tomorrow, and regrettably sometimes failing and thereby storing up masses of problems for later years.

 

Oddly the RMT leadership seemed to be more interested in shouting from the rooftops rather than quietly helping its membership in the background.

 

But count yourselves lucky folks - at leat you're not in the TSSA who nowadays at Head Office level couldn't negotiate their way out of a paper bag and have regrettably for many years been unable to supply local members with truly well informed HO reps when the member has had need of them.  They let me down drastically with their relationship with Thompsons where neither the Union HO nor the solicitor really understood what they were at and the latter sent me a bill because they claimed to have done more than the union would pay for (not that the union ever told me their payment was for a limited amount only).  No wonder I told them to get lost when they sought to retain me as a paying member after leaving the industry on redundancy.

[Western Dave]

Just reminds me of my Dad who was in Aslef as a driver in early 70s London Transport (-and one of the last drivers of main line steam for LT - see the book Red Panniers) -

 

NUR - No Use Rushing

 

ASLEF - A's left ma train in the depot man....

 

70s comedy but still amusing.

 

 

Kind regards

 

Matt Wood

My Dad was on LT for over 37 years and was in the NUR and as soon as he was promoted to a monthly paid position he moved to the TSSA and paid less subs and never had to strike another day as the TSSA never called strikes themselves and when the NUR/ASLEF went on strike he just had to call in from the nearest underground station to say he was available (which was handy as actually lived over the station)

[chriswright03]

There is the old adage that union membership simply means you get a very expensive diary!

 

If that is the case then it is a good thing because it means you havent effed up and needed representation.

Then there is the matter of collective bargaining, you dont think those pay rises are offered out of malevolence benevolence do you?

 

I have heard that expressed about the diary before on many occasions.  Said people usually neglected to mention the times I had been down to save theirs or their colleagues jobs or negotiated to change things for the better after stupid decisions made by local management.  Often those that left stated that they still got the pay rises and T's and C's no matter what.  Some even had the cheek to ask me to represent them when they were in for discipline.  We had a local ruling that we would not represent evena s a friend a non-union member as it was unfair to those who paid their dues.

Any union is only as good as its reps and District Officers - simple as that.  Generally since privatisation ASLEF has done a far better job for its membership than the RMT and that was initially down to having an excellent General Secretary at the time of privatisation who spent the rest of hist time in office working hard on behalf of his members and sometimes trying to dissuade various of them out of the 'jam today' deals being offered to them by hotshot (almost) managers who would be gone tomorrow, and regrettably sometimes failing and thereby storing up masses of problems for later years.

 

Oddly the RMT leadership seemed to be more interested in shouting from the rooftops rather than quietly helping its membership in the background.

 

But count yourselves lucky folks - at leat you're not in the TSSA who nowadays at Head Office level couldn't negotiate their way out of a paper bag and have regrettably for many years been unable to supply local members with truly well informed HO reps when the member has had need of them.  They let me down drastically with their relationship with Thompsons where neither the Union HO nor the solicitor really understood what they were at and the latter sent me a bill because they claimed to have done more than the union would pay for (not that the union ever told me their payment was for a limited amount only).  No wonder I told them to get lost when they sought to retain me as a paying member after leaving the industry on redundancy.

I must first repeat as mentioned in other threads I was the Union Chairman and then Secretary at a bus depot and nothing to do with rail.  I represented in excess of 130 Unite members for a couple of years or so.  So I agree 100% with the bold in the Stationamaster's quote above.  I took over as Secretary having been Chairman before that.  My predecessor was an individual who could talk the talk but never actually did anything.  In fact going back to the diaries the members got them in February one year because he screwed uop the order.

 

I am unsure how it works on the railways but as a bus driver I had one day allocated per week for Union duties.  That was supposedly for me to carry out my own duties within my Union Secretaries role.  As it happend most of the time was spent in disciplines.  Quite a lot of the time spent preparing for hearings was my own as was that spent on preparing for meetings.  I had the support of a Full Time Officer who I could speak to or email and he would visit me from time to time to assist.  He would also be available to sit in on meetings if required.  He was very good and I could not have done the job without him.

 

I spent several weeks on courses with Unite and learned a lot from both the instruction and talking to other reps in general.  I believed that I was there for the sole interests of the membership and not my own agenda.  In that respect I differed from some I ahve met and heard of.  So a poor rep will do more damage than good and tuen members away from the Union.

 

In respect of Thompsons.  We also used them and whilst I was glas of the free will writing service which I used I found their ability in representing a driver in a claim for injury to be poor in the extreme.  Even after I left the Company I was still being contacted by them to be asked things that I had no knowledge of and on the day of the trial the solicitor who had been dealing with it for over three years didn't even turn up but sent someone else.

 

I also had experience of the Police Federation which of course is not a Union and was very glad of it in Industrial Tribunal proceedings against my employer.  I was actually a witness but in the end had a case of my own that the Police caved in on having lost one already.  The costs for that ran into hundreds of thousands and had I not been a member I would have stood no chance.

 

I think Union membership is well worth it but accept that you do take your chance with who is representing you.  In the end I wasn't happy with who was representing me so stood up and did it for me and the others in the Depot.  I obviously would like to think I did a good job and certainly tried my very best.  I did receive word from an Ex Colleague the other day who took over my role as she informed me that a member had said 'at least when Chris Wright was here he listened to us'.

 

As regards different Unions well Grimsby was all Unite apart from one driver who was RMT.  Lincoln on the other hand were split between Unite and RMT and they were at each other's throats in any meetings which made the Management's job muuch easier.

 

I always saw my role as to work with management and not to fight them.  That didn't mean I wouldn't (or didn't) fight them if the need arose.  Very pro Union if you didn't guess.

[PM47079]

Like Jim says in an operational incident being in a union can be very helpful. Although to be fair I don't think they are particularly good with the freight companies as a lot of the reps are ex passenger tocs. But that's a debate for another day.

[highpeakman]

As I posed the original question I would like to Thank everyone for their input. I have gained a small insight into the driver's unions, I think.

 

None of the companies (mostly small) I worked for in my own career had any form of union representation so I have virtually no experience of being a member. I say virtually because I was once forced to become a member of the Printers, Bookbinders and Papermakers union for a period of 5 weeks while working as a student on a summer job at a printing company. I paid one weeks subscription as you were allowed to lapse 6 weeks before being thrown out. Such places were closed shop then (60s) and the union had considerable power. 

 

As an outsider, but an industry watcher, over many years I do believe that unions have an extremely beneficial role to play in the work place and, overall, are a good thing however I have also seen that, in some cases, power can corrupt ideals and things may be done which are not to the overall benefit of the membership. Equally, of course, it should be born in mind that such "power trips" also happens in company management. The same is true regarding laziness in performing the job properly, whether as union rep or company manager, and unfortunately I do not think human nature will ever allow elimination of such problems. 

 

I finished my career as a company director owning part of our company but we were deliberately very open about how the company was performing with our employees and paid good bonuses directly relating to profit (profit figures were posted on the notice board each month). The harder everyone worked then the higher the rewards for everyone. It seemed a natural way of getting the best out of people and I believe that everyone benefited with good working relationships and resulted in a successful company - of course, with that way of operating we did not become millionaires either! We felt we had no need for unions but that was with a small company (15 employees) where everyone knew each other well and I do not see how that approach would work with large operations and, in particular, in industries such as railways where safety and protection of employees are  complex issues. 

 

My son is a member of Unite and they have done quite a good job of supporting him during one dispute with his employer so overall I believe they are good things (most of the time).

 

Thanks again to everyone for contributing. 

[Foulounoux]

deleted as my original on review wasn't relevant to the discussion

 

Colin

Edited January 10, 2018 by Foulounoux

[E3109]

Having read other comments, I thought I'd add this.

 

The break-up of our industry created an (artificial) internal market.

Thus, train drivers' salaries were only ever going to go one way.

I respect the fact that Aslef have capitalised on that, although I think its going a bit too far when they claim that they actually created the higher salaries. 

That said, there have been some damned good negotiators within the process so they can be proud of that achievement, but actually claiming all the credit for it is stretching a point methinks. 

 

Incidentally, I read somewhere, ages ago, that a driver's salary was roughly equivalent to a policeman's back in the 1950s.

If this is true, then clearly there were significant pay squeezes during BR days.