THE resilience of train drivers in their fight for a pay rise seems to know no limits, and the general secretary of their union Aslef, Mick Whelan, is proud of them.

After 22 months and 17 rounds of strike action they still voted by more than 95 per cent to strike again, after easily surpassing the government-imposed 50 per cent threshold for turnout in union ballots on industrial action.

Tory legislation introducing compulsory ballots on strike action appeared to be based on a Tory fallacy that workers went on strike on the orders of so-called “union barons” like Whelan — not because they had a grievance and were prepared to fight to rectify it.

The train drivers have voted overwhelmingly to strike in every statutory six-monthly ballot held since June 2022. The latest was in February.

“I’m proud of the unity shown by our members,” Whelan tells the Morning Star. “They are still voting 95 to 98 per cent for strike action to protect their livelihoods.”

Train drivers at the 16 private operators affected by the strikes have not had a pay rise for five years. Yet at 17 other private operators Aslef has reached agreements on pay and conditions. They include passenger operators in Scotland and Wales which are controlled by their respective devolved governments.

The common factor with the 16 operators in dispute in England is the involvement of the Westminster government in the running of the companies. There have been no negotiations for a year.

“Political dogma is driving this dispute,” says Whelan. 

Nor do the operators have any financial incentive to settle. After the railways were privatised by the Tory government of John Major with the Railways Act of 1993, franchises awarded to privateers included protection of operators’ profits in the event that rail unions surmounted the legislative obstacles to taking strike action.

In addition to the taxpayer-funded subsidies paid to operators — £11 billion in 2022-23 — the operators are indemnified against any profits lost through industrial action. Each time train drivers strike the government dips its hand into the taxpayers’ purse again and takes out more cash to compensate shareholders for lost income.

When trains run by the 16 private operators come to a halt again for three days next week the estimated £25 million-per-day theft will be repeated for the 18th time in the current dispute.

Whelan says the Tory dogma saturating the privatised railways shows itself in other ways.

“After the Covid pandemic when other European governments were cutting fares to encourage people back onto the railways, here the fares were increasing again,” says Whelan. “The pillagers are still there.”

At every stage of the operating system sits a layer of companies and shareholders creaming off profits.

It starts with the rolling stock leasing companies, or Roscos, which own the carriages and locomotives. 

Roscos lease the carriages and locomotives to the operating companies, creaming off a share of profits provided by taxpayers and passengers.

“The Roscos’ profits were up 41 per cent last year,” says Whelan.

The operating companies subcontract work to yet more companies scrabbling for their share of profits including for example firms employing low-paid cleaners and catering workers. The workers’ wages are at the bottom of the employers’ list of priorities.

Another aspect of the scam is the Tory boast that profitable private firms would invest some of their profits back into the industry, improving services, building new rolling stock, investing in the rail network.

Not so, says Whelan. “Not one privateer has built a single train or coach or invested in the infrastructure,” he says. “It’s been the taxpayers who have done it.”

Labour plans to take Britain’s railways back into public ownership if the party is elected to power as is expected later this year. As each operator’s franchise runs out it will not be renewed and rail services be taken over by a government-owned company. It will be a gradual process.

“I look forward to Labour completely renationalising the industry when it gets into power, and they create a vertically integrated rail service serving all sections of all communities,” Whelan says.

He says that under privatisation London and south-east England had benefited at the expense of regions such as the north west.

Whelan points to the potential benefits of a publicly run rail network. In Liverpool, where services have been taken under public control, city mayor Steve Rotheram has pledged to build three new railway stations serving communities in much need of the jobs and services the development would bring.

By the time Labour gets into power — with November predicted as the most likely month for a general election — the Aslef train drivers will have been taking intermittent strike action for two years and five months, assuming the present government continues to block any settlement.

Aslef changed its strike strategy last year. Instead of all drivers striking at all 16 operating companies on the same days, different companies are targeted on different days.

Because the companies’ operations are supposed to integrate with each other — which under privatisation has always been an ambition rather than an achievement — staggering the strike days has a greater impact on services.

Strike action is made even more effective by the withdrawal of overtime and rest-day working on which the privateers depend. Paying overtime rates is cheaper than employing sufficient drivers to meet timetable commitments, so there’s a shortage of drivers, thanks to the operators’ greed for profits.

This month’s strikes will be coupled with a six-day overtime ban. The train drivers have staged 14 national one-day strikes during the dispute.  

Aslef staged its first rolling programme of a week of staggered one-day strikes at different companies in December last year.

A second rolling programme at different operators was staged in January and February, and a third in April.

The drivers will walk out at c2c, Greater Anglia, GTR Great Northern Thameslink, Southeastern, Southern/Gatwick Express, South Western Railway main line and depot drivers, and SWR Island Line on Tuesday May 7; and at Avanti West Coast, Chiltern Railways; CrossCountry; East Midlands Railway, Great Western Railway; and West Midlands Trains on Wednesday May 8; and at LNER, Northern Trains and TransPennine Trains on Thursday May 9.