LUL Trains: escalate strikes to defend conditions!

LUL train operators in RMT have voted by an 89% majority to continue strikes in our dispute against the company's attempt to worsen our terms and conditions, under the guise of a "four-day week".

With the figures in the re-ballot roughly equivalent to those in the initial ballot six months ago, it's clear there is still a resolve to fight.

That ballot mandate must now be used.

There's no magical set of tactics that will guarantee us victory. But what we can say with relative certainty is that simply repeating what we've done already won't work. We've taken two rounds of two-day strikes, in May and June, and the company hasn't budged. We need to escalate.

There are at least three immediate means to increase the impact of strikes. These are:

- Timing our strikes strategically so they cause the maximum impact. The aim here isn't simply to disrupt and inconvenience passengers, which we never relish, but to work out when our action will have the biggest impact on the company's revenue and the wider economy.
- Coordinating our strikes with strikes by other workers. With Track Access Controllers and Power Control Room workers already having a live mandate, and workers in Track and Signals potentially balloting soon, we should seek the maximum coordination of disputes.
- Striking for longer. This means a greater sacrifice from us, although the blow can be softened by judicious use of hardship funds for workers who need it most. If we take the 58% of drivers overall who voted against the company's proposals in referendums conducted by both unions as a measure of who's likely to strike, let's say the company can run around 40% of trains on a strike day. They can ride that out for a day or two. A week at 40% service is a different matter.

RMT reps are meeting on Friday 21 August to discuss next steps. We need an escalation of action, not a re-run of what we've done already.