Can you blame rail workers for going on strike?

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

The superficial view is that the strikers are at fault (PA)

Of course the Tory government will not make a move to solve the rail situation. The superficial view is that the strikers are at fault and that the disruption will decrease the Labour vote at the critical by-elections.

Why, when a Tory says modernisation, do they mean sacking staff? Let us create a modern first class rail system which involves more staff looking after more passengers, with staff on platforms to aid passengers and help with baggage and directions.

We don’t need the vanity project HS2. I don’t believe it is necessary to spend £120bn before a start can be made on local improvements to rail commuting, which would take cars off the road.

Robert Murray

Nottingham

We should be looking to Germany

Sean O’Grady (no relation to Frances, I presume) sets the context of the rail strike in simple terms of supply and demand. Superficially, yes. However, it might also be argued that there are deep and historical British social reasons behind this clash of employer and employees.

I believe it true that many people are sympathetic to the RMT cause on economic grounds. The majority are suffering similar travails. The deeper problems of business managers being able to decide and manage, and workers being able to earn a decent wage for their efforts and qualifications, is hidden behind the veil of inflation and long negotiations. Years of them.

Our industrial relations in the rail sector have changed little in the past 100 years. Yes, this strike is a major disruption, but it was inevitable when both employer and union are stuck in a relationship based on outdated work practices and relationships. The employer has failed to establish decent employment practice and the union has failed to embrace technology and modernisation.

The union’s fears are valid, therefore, they hang on to the bargaining chips they have, no matter how daft. There are good well-paying jobs in modern technology, and instead of defending people being sat in cabs and pushing the odd button they should be angling for the new roles in automation. On good terms.

Most local stations (not mine) are dull and dirty and everything appears to be done at the lowest possible cost. Bring back good design, comfortable waiting areas and seating, and make it better, including proper access for disabled and elderly people. Lighter, automatic, hydrogen-powered passenger trains would enable more frequent rural services and provide more jobs in depots (which could provide good quality worker housing like the Bournville style whilst workers establish themselves and buy locally).

There is a reason why Germany has largely good employer/worker relations, high investment, modern technology, good wages, and safe workers. Each party recognises that the other has a point and something to contribute. No one is right all the time. This dispute could offer a model for future British industrial relations, proper long-term investment, and good public services where the staff are not resentful of their customers. We don’t need laws to resolve disputes, or prevent them disrupting public services, we need good managers on both sides with intelligent and fair attitudes.

This is what Labour should be promoting. The Tories represent the slave masters and are as out of date as the RMT’s policies and strategy.

Michael Mann

Shrewsbury

Enormous damage done

History has many lessons to teach us. Unfortunately, we fail to learn most of them. But we must not ignore what recent history is shrieking at us, and that is that our system permits enormous damage to be done in a short time by one person.

In just a few years, Boris Johnson has reduced our successful, respectable nation to an impoverished, untrustworthy laughing stock. He has divorced us from our nearest trading neighbours, broken his own government’s rules, and made international agreements that he either misunderstood or had never intended to keep. And he’s trying to remove our right to peaceful protest.

As Caolan Magee says, Johnson has the makings of a tyrant. But our first past the post voting system has allowed him a large parliamentary majority, so we are stuck with him for another two years, unless more Tory MPs turn against him. Can nothing be done?

Susan Alexander

South Gloucestershire

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There is a magic money tree

We have often been told, by successive members of this Conservative government, that there is no “magic money tree” which can be used to finance public sector wages or public services.

Nonetheless, consider the recent story that Boris Johnson allegedly intended to make Carrie Symonds his chief of staff on a six-figure salary when he was foreign secretary. Never before has the highest office in the land been held by someone who treats this nation and its population with such blatant disregard, bordering on naked contempt.

As the cost of living crisis bites ever harder and yet we are urged by his government, time and again, to show restraint in our wage demands, is it any surprise that underpaid and undervalued workers in the public sector are no longer willing to sit quietly and take whatever they are given? No administration with him at the helm, or holding any position of authority, can now expect any public respect or support.

Julian Self

Wolverton

This article was amended on 11 August 2022. Previously, the lead letter contained additional content from a second correspodent, which had been added by mistake.