Did the unions ever try and stop Beeching?

[uglymonkey]

I'm just curious about this, what with the LNER announcement and ongoing pay and condition disputes. Did the unions ever try and do any thing to stop the Beeching cuts going through? After all a 1/3rd of the network slashed, 100,000's of job losses, but you don't hear of the unions trying to do anything historically ( or I'm looking in the wrong place) - did they just think it was just inevitable (white heat of technology etc) . Would it have made a difference any how no matter what they did?

The only national strike ( the 1955 one) seems to have decimated the railways a little bit, with a lot of goods particularly lost during the strike to folks who got fed up with it and went out and brought a "cheap" army surplus van or lorry and never looked back and as a result it never recovered - did the unions, remembering this experience decide not to oppose Beeching?

 

[Dr Hoo]

Many grades had benefited from a helpful wages boost from the Guillebaud Report into low pay, initiated by the Minister and implemented under Beeching.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

It also happened at a time when employment was growing and so all the displaced staff were relatively easily redeployed elsewhere in the economy so there wasn’t mass unemployment.

 

[Bishopstone]

I believe railway pay was low, versus other relevant occupations, so for the most part workers switching to a new industry would not have suffered a drop in living standards - or not for long. In that era, the railway pension scheme was also unexceptional.

 

[eldomtom2]

The unions absolutely made a lot of noise about the Beeching cuts and fairly strongly opposed them for obvious reasons. Bagwell's official history of the NUR devotes a entire chapter to Beeching and the unions. While the unions obviously paid a lot of attention to securing good redunancy agreements rather than preventing the loss of jobs, a degree of attention was definitely paid to the latter, and they certainly didn't support most closures. By the end of the 1960s the unions were bringing a fair bit of pressure on the government against the remaining closure proposals.

In addition, while not directly connected with the Beeching Report itself, there was a one-day nationwide strike in October 1962 in protest of workshop closures that would lead to the loss of around 9,500 jobs between 1962 and 1967. While the strike did not prevent any closures, it did secure fairly generous redundancy agreements.

 

[WesternLancer]

I'm just curious about this, what with the LNER announcement and ongoing pay and condition disputes. Did the unions ever try and do any thing to stop the Beeching cuts going through? After all a 1/3rd of the network slashed, 100,000's of job losses, but you don't hear of the unions trying to do anything historically ( or I'm looking in the wrong place) - did they just think it was just inevitable (white heat of technology etc) . Would it have made a difference any how no matter what they did?

The only national strike ( the 1955 one) seems to have decimated the railways a little bit, with a lot of goods particularly lost during the strike to folks who got fed up with it and went out and brought a "cheap" army surplus van or lorry and never looked back and as a result it never recovered - did the unions, remembering this experience decide not to oppose Beeching?

I think the rail unions did campaign against it. Not sure on the style of that but not industrial action.

IIRC Christian Wolmar’s recent book on British Rail covers this in the sections on BeechingvReport.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Aug 2024 ==

See ref the NUR archive here

The National Union of Railwaymen, 1913-2013

warwick.ac.uk

Look down the page for the heading’ Beeching’ and the image of a leaflet that is interesting as it explains that it is difficult for the union to do anything, and the users must be the ones to object.
Also link to the union’s document Beeching Retort.- ‘The Mishaping of British Railways’:

The Mis-Shaping of British Railways - Part 1: Retort :: The Railways Archive

Archive of UK railways documents

www.railwaysarchive.co.uk

Link to 4 page NUR 'Retort' brochure on the proposals critiquing them

https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/NUR_Misshaping1963.pdf

 

[WAB]

I think the rail unions did campaign against it. Not sure on the style of that but not industrial action.

IIRC Christian Wolmar’s recent book on British Rail covers this in the sections on BeechingvReport.

See ref the NUR archive here

The National Union of Railwaymen, 1913-2013

warwick.ac.uk

I recall that from a previous reading of the literature, the action was primarily local in nature and there was a great deal of fury at inaction by the unions on a national level. There was a certain inevitability to the changes. Mind you, the terms that were being offered to offed staff were alright for the time.

I once spoke with a gentleman who had studied the period in question and was of the opinion that the union response to the widespread closures was far more muted than if the Modernisation Plan had genuinely focused on reducing operating costs and minimising staffing on lesser used lines.

 

[WesternLancer]

I recall that from a previous reading of the literature, the action was primarily local in nature and there was a great deal of fury at inaction by the unions on a national level. There was a certain inevitability to the changes. Mind you, the terms that were being offered to offed staff were alright for the time.

I once spoke with a gentleman who had studied the period in question and was of the opinion that the union response to the widespread closures was far more muted than if the Modernisation Plan had genuinely focused on reducing operating costs and minimising staffing on lesser used lines.

Thanks for these insights which help fill out what I have read.

Certainly suggests the rail unions campaigns were not as 'full on' as may have been expected which of course re-enforces the reasons why the common history of the topic does not accord rail unions a large part in the narrative.

I think one thing to also consider is that in the period the idea of 'citizen campaigning / protesting' or whatever we might call it now, was much more limited than people today would be familiar with - eg direct action and protests might be limited, there would not be many guides or campaigning organisations helping people understand how they could use official objection processes to bring pressure to bear on decision makers - and a more widespread respect for official processes - perhaps 'respect' is not the right term, but maybe more of an acceptance than when government decided to do something there wasn't much that ordinary people could do about it.

My sense is that this changed during the 1960s so the sort of campaigning that arose with the closure of the Borders railway in 1969 - eg eye catching media stunts, blocking the path of the final train etc would not have been the sort of thing that would have happened so much earlier in the decade.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The rate at which closures were proposed and implemented in 1963/64 was too great really for any protest momentum.
The unions were keen to get the best redundancy deals, rather than oppose closures most of which everybody accepted as inevitable.
BR was also careful with its cases for closure, usually on narrow "costs are this and revenue is a fraction of it" basis.
The only case allowed against closure was "hardship" for passengers, and this was usually met with promises of replacement bus services.
The bus services often lasted only a few years in rural areas.
It took just about 2 years for the railway network to be decimated, with a few high-profile refusals to close.
Today they wouldn't even have concluded the consultation in that time, let alone decided if a line should close.
Labour came in in October 1964, but did not really alter the Marples/Beeching closure proposals.
Barbara Castle then set about defining a social railway with attached subsidy, but it took until 1968 to implement, and closures continued albeit at a lower rate.

 

[The exile]

Not sure how widely it was the case that the staff of the replacement buses would be NUR members (as was apparently the case with the Minehead bus service and later union opposition to plans for regular commuter services on the WSR in the 1970s. That would blunt quite a bit of union opposition to what were mostly (seen as) inevitable closures.

 

[D Williams]

Sadly,much of the railway system was viewed as an anachronism. It was completely unsustainable in its then current form and provided services in rural areas that were almost unused. As pointed out earlier it was a time of full employment and staff left on a Friday to start a new job on the Monday. I knew at least four drivers who went on to drive for road haulage companies.

 

[WesternLancer]

Presumably the rail unions can not have been keen on the decline in membership that significant staff reductions resulting from closures, as well as from other modernisations, would have inevitably resulted in, from a purely declining union income point of view.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Beeching: Champion of the Railway? is a good book that gives the other side of the story. Written by RHN Hardy. It discusses the unions input in some detail too.

 

[Trackman]

Beeching: Champion of the Railway? is a good book that gives the other side of the story. Written by RHN Hardy. It discusses the unions input in some detail too.

I can guess where the finger pointing is, and it ain't Beeching.

 

[RT4038]

I can guess where the finger pointing is, and it ain't Beeching.

There is not a lot of finger pointing in the book - it is well worth a read to understand the situation at the time. Written by a well respected time served Manager.

 

[Shrop]

"Did the Unions ever try and stop Beeching?"

I wondered about this on the day that Sunak announced the curtailment of the Manchester leg of HS2. On that day Mick Lynch was interviewed on national TV news about the rail strikes. He talked about that, but said nothing about Sunak's wrecking of the biggest rail project the UK has had for decades. Surely that was the perfect opportunity for him to express disgust about this, whether or not he had been invited to talk about it? I really thought that someone who claims to argue for the benefit of the railways, might have seized this chance to express utter disappointment at what Sunak was doing?

 

[Titfield]

It is worth reading the whole section on labour relations in British Railways 1948 - 1973 A Business History by Gourvish.

It highlights the gordion knot problem of paying low paid workers a higher wage (as recommended by the Guillebaud report) which pushed BR further into the red, which means that fares had to go up which drove traffic away from the railways which pushed the railway further into the red.

Ironically one of the unions own paradoxes was that it wanted higher wages for its members, many of whom were then able to join the booming car owning class further reducing rail passenger traffic. Those additional cars compelled greater road building which further encouraged the switch to road not only of passenger traffic but also of freight.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I can guess where the finger pointing is, and it ain't Beeching.

It paints Beeching of being methodical and doing what was necessary at the time.

There is not a lot of finger pointing in the book - it is well worth a read to understand the situation at the time. Written by a well respected time served Manager.

Agreed 100%

 

[eldomtom2]

Ironically one of the unions own paradoxes was that it wanted higher wages for its members, many of whom were then able to join the booming car owning class further reducing rail passenger traffic. Those additional cars compelled greater road building which further encouraged the switch to road not only of passenger traffic but also of freight.

Surely rail workers were not a sufficiently large enough section of their population for car ownership rates among them to have any real impact?

It paints Beeching of being methodical and doing what was necessary at the time.

As I've said before, Beeching benefits a lot from being judged by what he managed to get rather than what he wanted - it is much harder to argue that the proposals in the Trunk Routes report were "necessary at the time", since after all they were ignored.

Written by a well respected time served Manager.

So perhaps not the best source for the union's perspectives? As mentioned in my previous post, Bagwell covers the subject fairly heavily from the union's perspective?.

 

[Tio Terry]

The Unions would not be fighting Beeching, he didn't close any railway.

They would be fighting the Government. Governments, from both major parties, decided which parts of Beechings report to adopt or discard.

 

[Titfield]

The Unions would not be fighting Beeching, he didn't close any railway.

They would be fighting the Government. Governments, from both major parties, decided which parts of Beechings report to adopt or discard.

True but many use "Beeching" as shorthand for the railway or the government of the time because they do not know the intricacies of how the railways and the govt worked and who was responsible for what.

 

[eldomtom2]

The Unions would not be fighting Beeching, he didn't close any railway.

They would be fighting the Government. Governments, from both major parties, decided which parts of Beechings report to adopt or discard.

As chairman of the BRB Beeching was deeply involved in any negotiations with the unions, and both they and the press associated events on the railway with him, as these screenshots of news reports surrounding the October 1962 strike show:

(Screenshot from British Movietone newsreel. Daily Sketch newspaper, headline "BEECHING: I'VE NO PLANS TO MEET UNIONS")

(Screenshot from British Movietone newsreel. Daily Mirror newspaper, headline "OCT. 3 - NO TRAINS ANYWHERE - Union slams back at Beeching sackings")

(Screenshot from ATV news report on NUR strike march in Derby. Marcher holds placard reading "£24,000 A YEAR TO SACK THE POOR £9 A WEEK MAN")

The unions also attacked Beeching in response to the report itself (this is from the NUR's "The Mis-Shaping of British Railways" pamphlet:

THE OBVIOUS REMEDY

The Report itself admits that the Railways paid their way from 1947 to 1952. But it conveniently OMITS to mention that this was during the period of transport integration installed by the Labour Government. It worked. It paid. It proved an unqualified success.

There was no need for the Government to introduce Dr. Beeching and his very highly-paid army of ex-industrial supporters. A proven remedy was at hand - and still is.

The financial rot set in ONLY AFTER the Tory Government denationalised road haulage.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Governments, from both major parties, decided which parts of Beechings report to adopt or discard.

Many forget this.

 

[nanstallon]

Beeching was basically right in that the railway was burdened with a lot of dead wood and was hopelessly over-manned. But he went too far, and my main criticism is that he didn't explore how some marginal lines could have been run more economically. For example, Minehead, Ilfracombe and the Southern main line to Plymouth could have been saved - the delay in closing these lines suggests that the management was a little reluctant to close them. The saga over the West Somerset Railway's attempt to run into Taunton shows that the NUR was not all that bothered about running trains, and I suspect that if Beeching had identified economies of operation (with redundancies), the unions would have kicked off.

 

[eldomtom2]

But he went too far, and my main criticism is that he didn't explore how some marginal lines could have been run more economically.

Beeching was explicit that he viewed economies as worthless unless they could make a line profitable:

The third suggestion, that rail buses should be substituted for trains, ignores the high cost of providing the route itself, and also ignores the fact that rail buses are more expensive vehicles than road buses. The extent to which the economics remain unsound can readily be seen by inserting a Movement cost of three shillings per mile in the table on page 17. It would still be necessary to have a passenger density of 14,000 per week, to cover the total cost of the service, as compared with 17,000 per week with diesel multiple units. It is not immediately apparent either, why it is thought that rail buses would give a better standard of service than a road bus in most rural areas.

Similarly, consideration of the cost figures will show that thinning out the trains, or thinning out the stations, would not make a service self-supporting even if it had no adverse effect on revenue.

These points have been mentioned, to dispose of any idea that stopping-train services could be preserved, as an economic alternative to buses or private transport, if only some ingenuity were shown by railway operators.

 

[yorksrob]

Sidney Weighell, of the NUM in the late 1970's is said to have payed an important role in resisting further closures. This is, of course, a few years after the worst of the closure programme in the 1960's.

This is well documented in "Holding the Line, How Britains Railways Were Saved" by Chris Austin and Richard Faulkner, which is well worth a read for those interested in the period.

Unfortunately with the pandemic and climate change, I'm increasingly of the conclusion that the railway will still need a lot of "save"ing to come.

 

[Western Lord]

Sidney Weighell, of the NUM in the late 1970's is said to have payed an important role in resisting further closures. This is, of course, a few years after the worst of the closure programme in the 1960's.

This is well documented in "Holding the Line, How Britains Railways Were Saved" by Chris Austin and Richard Faulkner, which is well worth a read for those interested in the period.

Unfortunately with the pandemic and climate change, I'm increasingly of the conclusion that the railway will still need a lot of "save"ing to come.

I think you mean NUR!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Beeching was basically right in that the railway was burdened with a lot of dead wood and was hopelessly over-manned. But he went too far, and my main criticism is that he didn't explore how some marginal lines could have been run more economically. For example, Minehead, Ilfracombe and the Southern main line to Plymouth could have been saved - the delay in closing these lines suggests that the management was a little reluctant to close them. The saga over the West Somerset Railway's attempt to run into Taunton shows that the NUR was not all that bothered about running trains, and I suspect that if Beeching had identified economies of operation (with redundancies), the unions would have kicked off.

Indeed, I suspect the unions would have kicked off and basically said "fully staffed railway or nothing", to which the Government would have said "well, nothing then".

 

[yorksrob]

I think you mean NUR!

Oh yes - apologies for the typo !

 

[Helvellyn]

As chairman of the BRB Beeching was deeply involved in any negotiations with the unions, and both they and the press associated events on the railway with him, as these screenshots of news reports surrounding the October 1962 strike show:
View attachment 164416
(Screenshot from British Movietone newsreel. Daily Sketch newspaper, headline "BEECHING: I'VE NO PLANS TO MEET UNIONS")
View attachment 164418
(Screenshot from British Movietone newsreel. Daily Mirror newspaper, headline "OCT. 3 - NO TRAINS ANYWHERE - Union slams back at Beeching sackings")
View attachment 164419
(Screenshot from ATV news report on NUR strike march in Derby. Marcher holds placard reading "£24,000 A YEAR TO SACK THE POOR £9 A WEEK MAN")

The unions also attacked Beeching in response to the report itself (this is from the NUR's "The Mis-Shaping of British Railways" pamphlet:
View attachment 164420

The key Union line being that, "The financial rot set in ONLY AFTER the Tory Government denationalised road haulage."

So presumably the rail unions wanted road haulage nationalised to protect freight on the railways. But that ignored that Motorway building was under way, car ownership increasing and the emergence of the package holiday.

I don't think it's fully appreciated how many gaps remain in the motorway network from what was planned and if more had been completed it might have helped tip the balance further from the railways.