Collision course on British Rail

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EIN BURGH & EAST OF SCOTLAN" DISTRICT aereat in the present productivity in the creation tivity items facing them benchel would he know a Militan supporter from a har of soap? STEVE GOOD (Kings Cross ASLEF) looks at the looming confrontation scaring union leaders and BR Board alike.

TROUBLE continues to mount for the British Railways Board. The NUR executive have now set June 28 as the deadline for strike action over the joint union claim for a 15% pay increase.

The NUR EC are refusing to negotiate on pay unless there is a substantially improved offer from the BRB. This follows the BRB climbdown on the immediate closure of the BR works after the NUR threatened to take strike action on June 7.

Meanwhile. ASLEF remains firm on flexible rostering. ASLEF conference voted unanimously to reject Railway Staff National Tribunal decision number 77 in which Lord McCarthy backed the BRB over flexible rostering.

The conference also reaffirmed its commitment to defend the 8 hour day and to accept no further worsening of conditions.

The strength of the positions taken by both ASLEF and NUR reflects the actual balance of forces between the Board and the unions in the year-long battle over pay and productivity.

The McCarthy award and the renewed support of the Tory government for a hard line approach by the BRB may give management some little comfort but in reality the victories belong entirely to the In spite of ASLEF's partial strike action early this year, it was the footplate union which won the first round of the battle. In spite of Sid Weighell's treacherous agreement on variable rostering, the actual implementation of the new rosters is largely stalemated within the NUR by the refusal of many local representatives to accept them.

The BRB are keenly aware of this strength and are desperate to keep control of the situation. For this reason, the climbdown over the works closures was carried out with embarrassing haste.

The Board know that the only way they can achieve victory over the unions is if they can isolate one union from the other and defeat that union on the issue they choose, be it one-manoperation or flexible rostering.

Only then can the Board proceed with further attacks on conditions. To have precipitated a dispute with the NUR over the works closures would have completely wrenched the initiative from the Board's hands.

The position of the BRB is indeed a delicate one. On pay, the ASLEF executive meet this week to determine their response to the June 28 strike call by the NUR.

Licence

In all this, it is Sid Weighell who continues to extend a lifeline to the BRB. In spite of the NUR executive's instruction that no further negotiations should take place on pay until BR come up with a better offer, Weighell in interpreting this mandate as in fact giving him license to bargain and plead for an improved offer in order to lift the strike threat levelled at management.

Weighell seems to be increasingly isolated on the executive, but any attempt to do a separate deal on pay for the NUR must be resolutely opposed within the NUR executive and the union as a whole.

Were he to isolate the NUR from ASLEF over pay, Weighell would provide the BRB with their only hope. The possibility of a united and militant approach on the pay claim can only create the best possible conditions for advancing demands for the rejection of so-called productivity items and to extend strike action beyond pay to a defence of existing conditions and jobs.

The ASLEF executive, for their part, must back the NUR strike call. The notion that ASLEF can go it alone may reflect an understandable mistrust of Weigheli, but it is a position which can only lead to Infand Having successfully repulsed a witch-hunting attack from Sid Weighell on the Executive earlier this year, Williams faces renewed attacks by Weighell at the forthcoming NUR conference. tactics of the BRB to divide and isolate one union from another. For the ASLEF EC to decide to go it alone would represent a kind of chest-beating which is just as treacherous Weighell's frantic behind-the-scenes deals.

Key to the development of a united campaign for strike action on pay and of joint NUR/ASLEF action committees at local level. These bodies must be built to prepare for joint strike action and to become a powerful movement within both unions to ensure that neither EC has room to saneliest yet noteet agreement on pay productivity.

A defeat for either union on any one of the nradurwould signal the beginning of a massive onslaught by the BRB on conditions.

On flexible rostering alone the prospect of. a defeat for ASLEF would mean the elimination of a whole range of agreements central to the conditions and jobs of footplate staff.

The BRB would not need to wait for next year's pay round to press their offenWILLIAMS. WILLIAMS.

sive on conditions - the attack would be automatic and immediate if concessions are made on longstanding agreements. The need for a united campaign on pay linked to the rejection of productivity, could not be more urgent.

Following the NUR Executive's to NUR Executive member IAN to NUR Executive member IAN

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