Southern, unions and us

This week we learnt details of further planned strike action, not just by the RMT, but also by ASLEF (the train drivers) who have decided to muscle in on the action. But why?

Personally, I hold absolutely no brief for Southern which surely, must be the worst run railway in the Country nor can I understand the attitude of the unions after Southern have guaranteed the employment of the crew member on the trains until the end of their franchise (which, one hopes, will not be renewed). I cannot see that safety would be compromised whoever was in charge of shutting the doors, and the second crew-member is there (in their ‘customer-facing role) to look after any passengers (or ‘customers’ as the travelling public are now apparently called) who might need some form of assistance.

So, jobs still there, public unaffected, what, therefore, is the problem? The answer would seem to be politics. Both unions are lead by militant hard left leaders who hate the idea privately run railways and a right-leaning government. They are just the latest in a long line of union bosses who have been trying it on – with greater or lesser degrees of success – ever since the Heath government of the early 1970’s and there seems no sign of any form of settlement in the near future for this particular dispute.

Should the government step in, therefore, and enforce a settlement either by removing the franchise from Southern or bringing in legislation to control the unions’ activities. The department of Transport says there is nothing they can do about the franchise because it is held by the parent company Govia Thameslink who are, it would seem, performing sufficiently well elsewhere to counteract the poor performance of Southern and therefore, remove any chance of being able to use the law to remove the franchise. There is also nothing they can do about the unions who, at least until now, have been acting within the law. (Although we learnt yesterday that Southern are taking legal action on the grounds that the industrial action is causing unnecessary inconvenience and distress to passengers).

So what is the answer? The rail company seems safe until 2020, the unions seem to be able to cause as much disruption as they want with nothing to stop them and even our own MP is saying very little, other than pursuing the – at the moment, irrelevant –  plan for the high speed service to stop at Rye when it is introduced at some indeterminate date in the distant future.

Some have said that privatising the railways has been a failure and that they should be re-nationalised. Please, no! I am old enough to remember commuting in the 1960s and ’70s on British Rail. Under-capitalised, starved of cash with no serious investment since nationalisation, the trains were very old, regularly broke down, overcrowded and usually filthy. Add to that unreliable points and signals that caused many accidents and hold-ups and we had a railway system that we definitely do not want to see again and which made even Southern look almost good.

It seems almost inevitable, however, that despite the current cop-out using the Govia Thameslink excuse, the government will have to intervene at some point to settle this and a certain amount of pride is going to have to be swallowed by all parties. It has gone on for far too long and it is long past the time when both Southern and the unions should have realised that neither of them is the most important factor here. That place belongs, and should always belong, to the paying customer.