RMT strikes will shatter the public's trust in the railways - Andrew Vine

That sense of a country going backwards instead of looking to the future has been intensified by calls for a general strike, speculation about growing industrial discontent and accusations from Ministers that unions are attempting to hold the country to ransom.

For once, those Ministers are right. This rail strike is as much about trying to give the Government a bloody nose as it is about working practices or the shrinking of a workforce by offering voluntary redundancy.

There is more than a touch of pride in the rail unions pointing out that this is the most extensive stoppage of the network since 1989, and that further strikes are likely.

No matter that it may cost the hospitality industry – much of which is on its knees after the pandemic – £540m in lost income this week alone.

Or that people desperate to enjoy the summer after the last two were lost to fear and restrictions won’t be able to get to events that will lift their spirits, such as the Headingley test match between England and New Zealand, or Glastonbury Festival.

No, all that matters here to the leaders of the strikes is the old-fashioned flexing of muscle. The rail unions are the last survivors of an age when strikes in the nationalised industries like coal, car-making and steel regularly sent shiver down governments’ spines.

Changing times, as much as any action by either governments or unions, put an end to that.

The pits and most of the steelworks are gone, and car production is in the hands of companies that will abandon Britain and move abroad if provoked too far by industrial trouble.

Only railways remain as the last critical part of national infrastructure that can be paralysed by strikes, and the relish with which the unions are doing so is a throwback to a lost era that most of us who lived through it were only too glad to see the back of.

There will be precious little sympathy amongst the passengers who rely on trains for the railway workers whose leaders proclaim so loudly that they are hard done by.

They might well be, but in case the RMT hasn’t noticed, so is just about everybody else on board the trains every morning and evening.

Virtually everybody I know who is on a salary that doesn’t vary much from month to month is struggling to some degree in the face of rising prices.

The difference is that they aren’t going on strike in pursuit of unrealistic pay settlements, or resisting changes to working practices that are inevitable in a fast-changing world that has been turned upside down by two years of worry and economic turmoil.

Instead, they’re gritting their teeth and doing everything possible to get by on what they have, because there isn’t an alternative. And at work, they’re adapting to change because realism dictates that is the only option if the companies which employ them are to survive and keep on paying their wages.

This is a strike that will ultimately prove counter-productive, because it will shake public confidence in the railways.

Passenger numbers have settled down at about 75 per cent of pre-pandemic levels as more people work from home for at least part of the time.

The number of people doing so is only likely to increase as companies decide, quite reasonably, that if their staff cannot rely on trains to get them to work, then the sensible option is to allow more home working. A further fall in passengers numbers follows on from that, inevitably leading to greater economies on a network that is already being propped up by vast amounts of public subsidy – which, let’s not forget, ultimately comes from people inconvenienced by strikes.

The pity of all this is that there has been a growing public appreciation for the railways in recent years. The introduction of new trains and efforts to reduce overcrowding and increase punctuality have improved services.

Commuters’ trust in the railways has increased as a consequence, even though they resent annual fare increases.

This week will shatter that trust, and can only make matters worse for railway workers in the long run. If union leaders cannot see that – or refuse to acknowledge it – then their members should point it out to them in no uncertain terms and demand they return to the negotiating table to find a sensible way forward.