Network Rail says “trade union intransigence” is blocking the modernisation of the railways and says the 1,850 job losses it is proposing could be managed through early retirements.
The RMT, which called 40,000 members out on strike this week, said it was opposed to plans to “cut thousands of jobs across the rail network while not giving a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies,” and “cutting safety inspections on the infrastructure by 50 percent in order to facilitate mass redundancies.”
But Network Rail’s Head of Media, Kevin Groves, said it wanted to cut 1,850 jobs out of the maintenance department’s 10,000-strong workforce. He added that there were 2,000 vacancies across the whole organisation, with the age profile of many maintenance workers being over the age of 50, and that the organisation believes there is a “latent demand for early retirement.”
RMT Accused of ‘Hype and Propaganda’
He accused the RMT of using “hype and propaganda.”But why does Network Rail—a public body with no shareholders—want to lay off 1,850 workers?
Groves said it wants to modernise railway maintenance by introducing new technology which is faster and more efficient.
Groves said when it comes to inspections, currently a crew of men will go out and walk the line looking for cracks in rails, missing clips, or rotting sleepers.
Groves said: “Cameras are attached to trains which are in service and they are attached to computers, which recognise discrepancies in what it is seeing with what it should be seeing. It pings a marker and once the train terminates it downloads to the engineering system and they can be checked later.
‘Smart Meters’ for Railway Points
Groves said RCM is a piece of kit which is attached to points and other lineside equipment and works in a similar way to a smart meter in the home.“It sends back readings so you can tell whether the points are in good condition. So you don’t need to come out and send an inspection team,” he explained.
But he said all of these require a formal consultation process and added, “If the union wants to be obstinate they can indefinitely hold it up.”
Groves pointed out that Network Rail recently introduced an internal app called Blink, which works in a similar way to WhatsApp for staff, but he said it took 12 months to bring it in because of the union.
‘Shortsighted and Dangerous’ Cuts to Safety Processes
But Robert Maisey, a policy and campaigns officer with the Trade Union Congress (TUC), told LabourList last month: “Cuts to Network Rail’s basic safety processes are shortsighted and dangerous. Network Rail took over from the private operator Railtrack after three major, fatal accidents resulted from its failures. And its current proposal would take us back to the same inadequate levels of maintenance with the loss of 627,000 hours of maintenance work a year.”Maisey wrote: “Some elements of the new Shapps/Williams plan are welcome—measures that increase overall public control, for example. But the proposals for Great British Rail will leave the actual day-to-day running of the railways in private hands. While the central problems of poor integration and private profiteering are acknowledged, they are fundamentally unresolved.”