Network Rail Bulletin April 2021

RMT NETWORK RAIL

SPECIAL MEMBERS BULLETIN APRIL 2021

CUT THEIR GREED, NOT YOUR JOB!

RMT’s response to Network Rail’s plans to cut jobs, pay, conditions and safety

Covid-19 What they said about you last year “One thing which really has come through is the phenomenal levels of commitment from everyone in the railways. It is a reminder of the innate loyalty to the railways and the skills being used by colleagues to help save lives.”

Andrew Haines, CEO Network Rail, April 2020

“Your members have been True Heroes.”

Grant Shapps MP, Secretary of State for Transport, letter to Mick Cash May 2020

“Achieving our business objectives for CP6 will be hugely influenced by our ability to attract, retain and develop diverse talent.”

Network Rail Annual Report 2020

What they are saying today...

“Outdated practices, and the impact of Covid on passenger numbers, show that the railway is not serving passengers, taxpayers or staff as well as it should.”

Andrew Haines, CEO Network Rail, March 2021

Despite Network Rail staff being hailed as heroes during Covid–19, the employer is now exploiting the crisis and they intend to introduce the biggest attack on jobs, conditions, safety and pay in generations. These reforms will affect all grades. They are nothing new and are in fact ideas the company have wanted to impose for many years to enable them to increase profits at your expense. They include:

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An open-ended pay freeze with massive effects on your earning power and standard of living. The company intends to make the whole workforce poorer.

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Managed stations staff moving to a “One Team” concept with unknown effects on station staff numbers, duties, terms & conditions in both Network Rail and the Train Operating Companies.

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Progressing with “21st Century Operations”, “Digital Railway” and “Intelligent Infrastructure” with huge implications for jobs, grading and responsibilities.

• Less staff carrying out far more work with less control over your work- life balance.

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Diluting safety standards and importing more risk. Network Rail intends to take more chances with railway safety in order to save cash through cutting maintenance cycles and jobs.

• Risk-based maintenance being extended so that Network Rail can dilute

current maintenance frequencies and cycles with some assets completely un maintained.

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A 50% reduction in Maintenance Scheduled Tasks with a potentially massive effect on maintenance section staffing establishments.

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Introduction of new technology measures, again affecting maintenance and inspection regimes and staffing numbers.

Joint working across maintenance disciplines which would end the current

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distinctions between established departmental disciplines such as S&T, OLE, P-WAY, P&D etc.

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Pooling of all Operative grades.

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Overlapping skills between current disciplines.

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Issuing of a new contract of employment replacing the current Infrastructure Maintenance Company contracts.

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Individual/personal rostering in Maintenance (elimination of team structures such as three person S&T teams).

More unsocial hours, more night and weekend working.

•

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In tandem with the above, there is an ever-present drive to simply remove, as far as possible, track workers from the Infrastructure during traffic hours along with consideration of the effects of the new Fatigue Standards.

• All of this to be undertaken without the commitment of No Compulsory Redundancies.

The whole purpose of these initiatives is to cut costs and jobs, wreck agreed working practices and change your work-life balance permanently with across the board increases in night and weekend working and unsocial hours.

Network Rail’s view is essentially – “If you’re lucky enough to keep your job it will be at the expense of all the current agreements, with extensive unsocial hours”.

Britain’s Largest Specialist Transport Union

NO CUNETTWSORK RAIL at

Network Rail’s Nasty Numbers…

While your job, pay, conditions and safety are all up for grabs, it is business as usual for Network Rail and the massive private sector profiteering that the company and the government fund.

These are just some of the figures showing how corporate greed is rife in Network Rail and the rail industry whilst outdated funding arrangements mean money is pouring out of the company to pay off expensive bank loans.

£2.3 billion

The company’s operating profit from July 2019 – July 2020.

Up 62% on the previous year.

Prior to the pandemic, profits were growing and they can be expected to grow back as the rail industry recovers.

27%

The amount of Network Rail’s revenue spent just on financing its debt in 2019/20. In the last year alone, the inefficient method of funding the company meant that out of Network Rail’s revenues of £8.1bn, an eye watering £2.17bn was spent paying off loans.

18

Network Rail directors were paid 18 times more than the lowest paid proportion of Network Rail workers. This figure was revealed after new legislation compelled the company to publish their pay ratios from 2020.

£174 million

The amount lost by Network Rail to private profits made by private companies undertaking renewals work last year.

£480 million

The amount Rolling Stock Leasing Companies and Train Operating Companies stand to make in annual private profit. Some of this money could instead be invested into Network Rail.

0%

The pay offer to Network Rail staff for the foreseeable future.

…and what a three-year pay freeze will mean to YOU An open-ended pay freeze has been imposed on all members.

This is what a three-year pay freeze could look like. And remember, less pay also means less pension.

Independent forecasters are projecting RPI inflation to run at an average of 2.7% over the next three years. The table below shows how various grades could look in three years after an annual pay rise in line with RPI projections and therefore how much worse off workers could instead be after a three-year pay freeze, both in terms of total loss of earnings and the impact on salary.

Sample of Network Rail roles and grades

Current salary 2021

2022 salary (increased by projected RPI)

2023 salary (increased by projected RPI)

2024 salary (increased by projected RPI)

Impact on salary of a 3-year pay freeze (compared to annual pay rises in line with RPI projections)

Total loss of earnings across 3 years (compared to annual pay rises in line with RPI projections)

S&T 2

£25,855

£26,553

£27,270

£28,006

-£2,151

-£4,264

S&T 6

£46,694

£47,955

£49,250

£50,579

-£3,885

-£7,702

Leading Trackman

£24,669

£25,335

£26,019

£26,722

-£2,053

-£4,069

Team Leader level 1

£33,807

£34,720

£35,657

£36,620

-£2,813

-£5,576

Team Leader level 4

£40,672

£41,770

£42,898

£44,056

-£3,384

-£6,708

Signaller 1

£26,486

£27,201

£27,936

£28,690

-£2,204

-£4,369

Signaller 5

£38,355

£39,391

£40,454

£41,546

-£3,191

-£6,326

Signaller 10

£50,224

£51,580

£52,973

£54,403

-£4,179

-£8,284

RMT’S ALTERNATIVE Cut their greed – not jobs, pay and safety

“Once all restrictions are lifted, we will have quite a quick bounce back.”

Network Rail spokesperson, 20th March 2021, predicting a rail recovery later in the year.

Network Rail and the government claim they need their reforms now because of the loss of passengers and revenue caused by Covid–19. This is despite the company very recently saying there will be a “quick bounce back” from Covid–19.

Network Rail’s real agenda is “unfinished business” with its workforce and RMT. Shamefully it wants to use the Covid crisis to rush through radical, ill thought-out changes and is preparing for a conflict with its own workforce.

RMT has no alternative except to go on a national dispute footing to defend members’ interests.

And we are also presenting the following alternative to the company and government:

• Safety First.

Cutting jobs, increasing workloads, reducing and diluting standards, inspections and safety

critical disciplines is a toxic cocktail of measures which could have disastrous consequences

for safety. Network Rail is importing danger and returning to the dark days of Railtrack

where cutting corners and staffing led to fatal accidents. This would be bad enough in any

circumstances but when we know the official safety regulator, the ORR, is also the

economic regulator whose job is to require constant cuts and “efficiencies” means it cannot

be trusted to make a fair assessment of the safety risks. This outdated form of safety

regulation is not fit for today’s railway and RMT is calling for an independent appraisal of

the safety risks and will be taking independent advice on the impact of the company’s proposals.

• Oppose attacks on RMT members.

Network Rail have made clear that they will be seeking to introduce their changes come what may. The open-ended pay freeze for all grades was handed down from “on high” and the company have made clear they are in a rush to bring in their new arrangements, which could be imposed alongside compulsory redundancies. The company will not even consult RMT on the dilution of maintenance standards and schedules which would enable the 50% reduction in Maintenance Scheduled Tasks. RMT will fight the dilution of safety, job security and conditions being imposed on members.

• Protect jobs, not bonuses.

The outdated Network Rail bonus structure incentivises directors to make cuts. On top of this, the government is demanding pay-back for the funding it has given to the rail industry.

This damaging short-term approach will not only lead to the loss of jobs, but it will also

mean valuable rail skills and experience are lost from the industry at exactly the time they are most needed. RMT is demanding that jobs are protected, and that this is underpinned by no compulsory redundancies and an integrated industry-wide job security agreement embracing all rail companies. This will protect employment and skills and allow staff to apply for different roles and develop their careers.

• Increase rail resilience, not rail risk.

An ageing railway infrastructure is becoming increasingly and rapidly vulnerable to adverse weather conditions and climate change. The Stonehaven tragedy was a terrible reminder of that growing threat. An outdated approach to rail resilience is not keeping up with rapid climate change. There is now an urgent need to increase, not reduce, resources to ensure greater rail resilience.

• Cut greed, not jobs and safety.

In 2004, in the wake of the disastrous crashes that accompanied privatisation of infrastructure, Network Rail brought its maintenance in-house. This generated savings of between £100 million and £264m every year from the reduced overheads from commercial profit margins, removal of duplication of systems to manage staff and programmes and economies of scale. The Parliamentary Transport Select Committee also recommended Network Rail should explore bringing rail renewals in–house. Yet, despite this, Network Rail persists with an outdated model of rail renewals. There is an alternative. RMT calculates this would save £174m a year. On top of this, ending the £500m annual profiteering by Rolling Stock and Train Operating Companies would also free up revenue for Network Rail.

• End outsourcing and casualisation.

The profiteering figures above do not include the waste incurred through other forms of outdated outsourcing practiced by Network Rail. RMT is undertaking new research in this area, but we already know that there are proven safety and efficiency benefits of directly employing staff. Our members report inefficiency and the leakage of millions in cash through the continued use of sub-contractors, agencies and casual labour particularly in Work Delivery. Network Rail continues to allow a profusion of agency, zero hours and bogus self-employed staff to operate on the railway infrastructure. Reliance on these outdated working arrangements and risks to safety may increase as Network Rail cuts directly employed jobs. The company should be ending casualisation and outsourcing and bringing all railway infrastructure staff in–house.

• Recognise that Network Rail staff are already very productive.

In fact, staffing costs as a proportion of total costs have remained unchanged since 2010, whilst the output of Network Rail staff measured against the growth in passenger journeys rose by 14% over the same period.

• Freeze their profits, not our pay.

As well as allowing money to be reinvested to protect jobs and services, ending the

outdated and discredited system of rail privatisation and profiteering should free up funds

to award Network Rail staff a pay rise. In fact, giving all Network Rail staff a decent pay rise

would cost substantially less than the profits leaking out of Network Rail and the rail industry.

• Restructure how Network Rail is funded.

It is time to end the outdated and illogical arrangements whereby the company’s finance costs have risen to around 30% of revenues, wiping out its operating efficiency. It would be cheaper to adopt a new approach where the government pays off the debt and funds Network Rail directly.

What happens next?

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RMT is opposed to this cuts agenda and will continue to campaign to protect your interests. But we are on a dispute footing and are actively preparing to ballot members for industrial action if it proves necessary.

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We will launch a widespread publicity and social media campaign to highlight your role as essential workers and the need to protect jobs, conditions, safety and pay.

• We will conduct a widespread political lobbying

campaign to protect your interests, with the support

of our parliamentary groups in England, Scotland and Wales.

What can I do?

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Spread the word – that we have to be ready to take whatever steps are necessary to defend our futures.

• Make sure that your workmates are members of RMT.

It’s quick and easy to join online at www.rmt.org.uk/about/join-rmt/

Together we are stronger.

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Make sure we have your up-to-date membership details. These are not only your contact details but also your work grade and location. If you’re not sure email info@rmt.org.uk or call 0800 376 3706.

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Keep updated. Look out for RMT texts and emails and stay in touch with your local rep.

Follow RMT on social media at @RMTunion

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www.rmt.org.uk

Britain’s Largest Specialist Transport Union

NO CUNETTWSORK RAIL at

DEFEND JOBS, SAFETY & CONDITIONS Network Rail are planning wholesale cuts to jobs and safety critical maintenance work by September.

The cuts would have huge consequences for Britain’s railways as we emerge from lockdown.

RMT will be fighting these cuts with every tool at our disposal.

NO

CUTS at

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