Rail unions say strike-busting UK law unsafe and unworkable

UK rail unions pledged to fight legislation aimed at ensuring trains run even during strikes, saying that the proposals are unworkable and potentially unsafe.

Labor groups said Thursday they’ll pursue all avenues in resisting the draft law, which would require them to supply enough staff to guarantee minimum service levels when taking industrial action, or face the removal of legal protection and automatic dismissals.

The Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, representing 96% of UK train drivers, said that piecemeal operations envisaged in the legislation would encourage overcrowding and also lead to disruption following strikes, with trains out of position for the resumption of full services.

“What happens when 100% of passengers try to get on 40% minimum service level trains?” Aslef General Secretary Mick Whelan said in a statement. “And the rolling stock will, next day, be in the wrong place. Which will mess up the normal timetable.”

While minimum-serve laws exist elsewhere in Europe they’re regarded as unworkable and not enforced, he added.

A spokesman for the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association said the government’s plans could also compromise safety if the railway was compelled to operate with a reduced number of people in control rooms.

National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers General Secretary Mick Lynch said the bill seeks to outlaw “effective legal industrial action” on the railway and called for it to be resisted in Parliament, in the workplace and “on the streets.”

Britons have endured months of transport turmoil as unions seek a pay deal matching inflation alongside guarantees against redundancies and wholesale changes to working hours. The RMT this week called new strikes at track owner Network Rail Ltd., which it said had reneged on a commitment to negotiate a deal, and 14 train firms in the absence of new proposals.

The UK government has estimated that rail walkouts over three days in June 2022 alone cost the economy almost £100 million ($113 million). The new bill would apply to “the entire transport sector,” according to the Department for Transport.

UK politics has been plunged into a new period of uncertainty after Prime Minister Liz Truss indicated she would stand down, triggering a new leadership election within here Conservative party, though the minimum service proposals originated several months before she became premier.