The Real Deal by Alan Smith, Stephen White, and Robin Copland - HTML preview

Tis the Season to Be Strikeful – One, Two, Three…

First, it was the BA cabin crew flexing their UNITE muscles and taking strike action; then there was a similar, but as yet unfulfilled threat of strike action by BAA workers backed by the same union; now, and much more damaging in terms of the sheer numbers of people inconvenienced, the rail unions are flexing their industrial muscles by claiming that the compulsory redundancies of some 800 tube workers will result in inevitable safety concerns and calling the first of many such strike days last week.

In so doing – and in arguably a damaging PR gaffe, choosing the 70th anniversary of the start of the wartime “Blitz” campaign on London for their first strike day (didn’t the right-wing British press love that one?) – the RMT union and its leader Bob Crow have taken the fight to the heart of Britain’s capital city, London. In so doing, they are taking a calculated risk and are asking Transport for London – but more importantly perhaps, the newly-elected Conservative / Liberal Democrat coalition – to consider their options:

• Carry on striking, chaps, for as long as you want. We will call on the traditional resilience of Londoners to weather whatever storms are a-coming. The more you strike, the more you will be reviled. We will literally starve you into submission and win the day. The problem with this management approach is simple: it is not an all-out strike, so the strikers can continue to pay their mortgages and feed their families without much cost to themselves. The cost to the country though, is huge. How deep is the country’s pocket before they come back to the negotiating table?
• Alternatively, management invite the unions back around the negotiating table and make further concessions. The problem with this approach will be the precedent set. Other unionized workforces may be t