Keeping Going

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محتوى الصفحة: Home > مجلة النقل الدولي "Transport International" > Issue 18 January 2005 > Keeping Going

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What do under-investment and liberalisation mean for the average rail employee? Eddie Dickson focuses on the day-to-day effects of railway reforms

The current World Bank and International Monetary Fund programmes, designed to transfer public assets to the private sector, have resulted in lost livelihoods for at least 40 per cent of the railway workforce employed at the beginning of the process. The Japanese state rail was split up with effect from 1987. Argentina felt the full effect of the policy in 1989, and over 20 countries have followed since. This process has allowed or forced governments to remove themselves from ownership or financial support of their railway system.

Job security, adequate staffing and support, working hours, training, benefits and collective bargaining rights are all affected by the same economic pressures that have seen services withdrawn and branch lines closing all over the world. They are pressures that impact directly on the nuts and bolts of any job on the railways.

Of course railway workers are not new to the affects of change. For as long as there have been railways, there have been technological and social developments impacting on the lives of the employees who operate them. Technological advances alone have created challenges for generations of railworkers and the unions who represent them, and led inevitably to a reduction in the size of the required workforce.

At least during the technological change process, workers were quite commonly offered retraining and alternative work options when a new development affected their ability to perform a particular role.

Under-investment could be viewed as a more long-term, insidious political process, culminating in the present era of state opt-out. Now social considerations have largely been dumped in favour of policies based on "just enough labour to achieve productivity requirements".

Towards decline
The changes from steam to diesel and/or electric trains in the mid-20th century were traumatic enough for engine drivers and firemen, and the changes did not stop there. At the same time, the specialist skills in engine or carriage construction were under pressure as investment in new-build was withdrawn and maintenance became the norm.

The development of electromechanical then fully electronic signalling systems and modern voice communication systems resulted in less employment and changes in skill requirements. Track work was and always will be hard work, but once the development phase of rail was over and investment withered, skilled workers found themselves in maintenance roles, patching rather than renewing.

The association of rail with public transport, especially long distance, declined in many countries as road transport developed and citizens' preference for the car became the political focus. Lack of rail investment gradually resulted in further decline and with the associated timetable failures, both public apathy and condemnation increased. The "family" of workers with unique skills was now under both financial and social threat.

The new realities
So what is life like for workers in the restructured railways today? How do they perceive their role in an industry that still needs a highly skilled, highly motivated workforce to perform the multitude of functions associated with this transport mode?

Many unions report that job satisfaction is down, concerns about safety have increased and career prospects are minimal, especially where there has been horizontal separation, for example track maintenance, rolling stock and route operation. The split-up of the railway system into separate companies, often in competition with each other, halted the ability to transfer to a more senior occupation or better work opportunities within the system.

The worst affected have been track workers. When there were employment links to other less physically demanding occupations in other sections of the railway, transfers were an employment option, but no longer. The ability to start at the bottom and work your way to the top as a career option is stifled by separation. Where work has been contracted out, permanent positions are fewer. At the same time unions report dissatisfaction that often the new bosses have not had any background in rail.

It is clear that fragmentation of the railway structure has been the most destructive aspect of the process, in terms of worker protection, service provisions and standards of safety. Meanwhile the financial argument that employee numbers must be strictly in accordance with the minimum services required has driven the attack on employment opportunities.

Depots and stations closed, staff removed from passenger services, maintenance gangs reduced to the absolute minimum. Safety protocols developed over many years are now challenged or ignored, workshops are closed or work contracted outside if it is cheaper. Work methods are constantly changing and shift patterns are always under review. Most workers accept the need for efficiency but they also demand the retention of secure jobs and the provision of public services, both of which are a direct challenge to the new employers, irrespective of the ownership structure.

Social dimensions
During the retrenchment process, social provisions for the retained workforce have often come under serious attack. These attacks often include the loss or reduction of pension rights, restriction or withdrawal of rights to free or subsidised housing, special holiday provisions and transport subsidies.

Some unions have been able to defend workers' social provisions but for far too many, the loss of employment in a specialised industry - often while living at an outlying or isolated depot - has brought nothing but hardship.

Today there are rail workers in crisis-struck economies who have not been paid for long periods of time. There are new recruits who are working on lower rates of pay and/or lesser employment conditions, alongside longer term employees working under "grandparent" employment conditions. Other workers have lost employment rights through "buy-back" packages.

For other rail workers, especially the less skilled, union coverage was lost when their functions were contracted out and the unions were not able to settle employment agreements with the new employers. In some cases the unions were not legally entitled to retain coverage of their members working for new employers. The transition process for unions has been fraught with hard decisions and often little choice. For some the right to strike is still circumvented by their government.

Throughout the difficulties that have been created in their working lives, rail workers have maintained their support for unionisation and for organised activity. For many there is also a feeling of loss of social recognition, but there is also a determination to fight for the survival of rail as a transport mode and, as a consequence, their own security.

Right now however, many unions are concentrating on survival. The economic realities guarantee that irrespective of ownership, bargaining for railway workers has become and continues to get harder.

Obstacles to bargaining
The transition to employment within a market-led company, and the reality of the modern state, where road is a formidable transport competitor, have restricted some of the scope for bargaining.

The situation gets even worse when a single-employer railway system becomes an operation run by several employers or even many. Not only might unions lose their right to retain members working for new employers, but the logistics for communicating with members and securing agreements with multiple bosses can become extremely difficult. Fragmentation leads directly to reduced membership and income for unions just as it increases their bargaining costs.

While governments have been removing themselves from responsibility for railways, many have also been weakening the industrial laws that historically assisted unions to achieve settlements. For many unions, the struggle has never been harder.

After decades of rail reforms, our demands for union participation, for public accountability in any railway structure, and the absolute prioritisation of safety considerations appear to be more clearly understood and better accepted by the public and governments than at any time in our collective histories.

Yet many governments - and crucially the international un-elected mandarins in institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund - remain to be persuaded that their policies are killing the public service in rail.

So even as they struggle for their very survival rail unions continue to confront the greatest challenge to date, the misleadingly named "liberalisation" of the railway structure.

When rail unions meet together the discussion quickly turns from yesterdays to the future. Irrespective of the rail structure the interests of workers come first, but there is little support for a restructuring process that has changed the lives of so many rail workers without demonstrating improvements for rail users and the workers that keep the system moving. Unions will remain in the vanguard seeking social responsibility from the rail operators.

Eddie Dickson is Assistant Secretary of the ITF Inland Transport Section.

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Issue 18 January 2005

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