Its early in 2023, I have been trying to discover what is happening in the UK.
Railway workers, nurses and ambos are on strike, climate protesters are being ankle tagged, journos are being arrested at protests and people can’t send mail overseas because the Royal Mail has been hacked. Prices have gone through the roof with CPI at between 12-15%, about twice that of Australia and the United States. The poor may have to start eating their children.
My interest was sparked when I saw a number of meetings between Tory government representatives and rail union officials. From what I could gather, Rail Unions are forced to negotiate with many small to large rail operators that are prevented from coming to a deal over pay and conditions by a government agency run by the Secretary of State. In these negotiations union officials clearly have a mandate from their members to negotiate secure jobs with a pay increase to match inflation. But on the other side of the table there are rail operator companies whose profits are protected by handouts and subsidies from the government. These companies have nothing to lose during strike days.
Britain is in free fall
I am reminded of the Ken Loach film The Navigators that came out after British Rail was privatised and downsizing and efficiency become the new buzzwords. Men used to working together found themselves belonging to different, competing companies. Some workers even had to tender for their old jobs. Others decided to take the redundancy packages offered by the private operator. Corners were cut in the interest of lowering costs, leading to a series of misadventures and eventually the tragic death of one of the signalmen.
One of the union officials, Mick Lynch, from the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) has become the leading advocate for British Rail to be re-nationalised. Tory ministers do not seem to have the ability to counter his arguments and the MPs ignorance of how the railway system works is constantly exposed by Lynch and his fellow unionists. Watching the debates between government and the unions has become a kind of theatre where Lynch has a starring role.
Lynch’s job must be pretty hard because he has to deal with many private railway operators as well as the government’s rail bureaucracy (Network Rail and Department for Transport (DfT) as well as Scottish Rail and Welsh railways.
The tactics of the Tory government seem to be to provoke a strike, get the population onside and then to introduce anti-union laws. But if that was the intention, it seems to have backfired. The strike leader, Mick Lynch from the RMT union is more popular than both the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, and the Labour Party’s opposition leader, Sir Keir Starmer (weird, him being a Knight, aye).
The Tory government has responded to the strikes in Britain with authoritarian anti-union laws supported by the tabloid press vilifying any group that has the temerity to strike. The deputy leader of the Labour Party had this to say about the Tory bill before the parliament.
Meanwhile the Royal Mail has put out the following notice:
Disruption to overseas mail
Royal Mail is experiencing severe service disruption to its international export services following a cyber incident. It means we’re temporarily unable to despatch items to overseas destinations via Royal Mail services. Items that have already been despatched may be subject to delays ….
Royal Mail notice – ironically, in a country that pioneered the mail service in its current form.… Royal Mail is working to resolve this disruption. We’re really sorry for any disruption this may cause.
Here are some posters reflecting the current situation.
Ian Curr
14 Jan 2023
References
Down the pub with Mick Lynch and Eddie Dempsey @ https://youtu.be/IyGjs_bBMBA