Past Underground Unions

[Admin Team]

I'm starting this thread following an email from 'Sean'.

I've tried to reply to it, but my reply keeps getting 'bounced', so I hope he spots it here.

Sean said.........

'Prior to the amalgamation with the RMT in the early 90s there were other Unions representing the Underground Workers - the NUR and ASLEF being the only ones I can think of.

Can you remember the names (and acronyms) of the others which possibly may have applied to the Guards and/or the Station Staff or even the Signallers. I remember the name of a Union cropping up quite regularly in the 60s and 70s - and definitely relating to the Underground - which was different from those mentioned above and, quite possibly, encompassed all Union Members.

Does it ring a bell?'

I replied........

'Yes it does ring a bell, though - I have to say - it's well before my time!

But I know several staff who read the site have more service than I, and may well be able to respond to this.

Can I suggest that you post the question on my forum at districtdave.proboards39.com/index.cgi - use the 'General Questions and Answers' section, and I'm sure you'll get an informed response pretty quickly!'

Can anyone add to this?

And I hope Sean sees this and doesn't think I'm ignoring his mail!

[Deleted]

I started on LU in 1983 and the main Unions were and still are:

RMT(formally known as the NUR prior to merger with the NUS)
Represents virtually all grades.

ASLEF
Represents staff in the line of promotion to Driver which in the past included Guards and Shunters.

TSSA (Transport Salaried Staff Association)
Represents Duty Managers and Revenue Inspectors, in the past they also represented Booking Office Clerks

TGWU (Transport and General Workers)
Represents mainly workshop staff in Depots.

I can think of no other union with representation on LU, others may well do.

[Tom]

The only other one I can think of is BTOG - The British Transport Officer's Guild, which only has a handful of members.

[Igelkotten]

This is interesting!

On another forum, I made this post. In part, my questions have been answered in this thread, but perhaps someone here knows the answers to my other questions?


/Igelkotten

================


Being an union activist myself, I also happen to have an interest in labour history. So, I have a few questions regarding the trade union history of LU and it's predecessors, that perhaps someone here can help me with, or direct me to a good source.

- When did trade unions start establishing themselves in the underground system?
- What unions were active then? I can imagine that ASLEF was one of the first, but did they originally organise just the drivers of today's sub-surface lines, or did they also organise the drivers of the tube lines? What about the tram staff -what union did they belong to? Other grades? Were they all NUR or TSSA, or were there others?
- When was the first strike on the underground? For what cause?
- What was the union reaction to the introduction of female staff during the world wars? And afterwards, especially after WWII?

Here in Stockholm, the tube was originally built and operated by the municipial tramway company, so traditionally the operations staff belonged to the Kommunalarbetareförbundet, the "City & Municipial Worker's Union". We have never had particularily strong connections to the railways, where the operating staff traditionally belonged to one of two unions aimed at organising workers employed by state-owned companies or authorities, one more blue collar, the other one more white collar. Back in the eighties, there was a reorganisation of the Swedish equivalent of the TUC, which meant that steel wheels ended up in the State Employee's Union, and rubber wheels (including the state railway bus company) ended up in the municipial worker's union.

My own mob, the syndicalists, have a long history on the railways. Not so much on the operating side, but a lot of the navvies, "rallare" who once built the railways and did the maintenace work were syndicalists -including quite a few of those who once built the Stockholm tube. Today, our members are mostly active on the operating side, even though we do have a few infrastructure workers spread over the country.


/Igelkotten

[Deleted]

Guest-Igelkotten said:

- When did trade unions start establishing themselves in the underground system?

Aslef was founded in 1880 so they wqere in at the start of the opening of the Underground, I believe the NUR was also.

Guest-Igelkotten said:

Here in Stockholm, the tube was originally built and operated by the municipial tramway company, so traditionally the operations staff belonged to the Kommunalarbetareförbundet, the "City & Municipial Worker's Union". We have never had particularily strong connections to the railways, where the operating staff traditionally belonged to one of two unions aimed at organising workers employed by state-owned companies or authorities, one more blue collar, the other one more white collar. Back in the eighties, there was a reorganisation of the Swedish equivalent of the TUC, which meant that steel wheels ended up in the State Employee's Union, and rubber wheels (including the state railway bus company) ended up in the municipial worker's union.

My own mob, the syndicalists, have a long history on the railways. Not so much on the operating side, but a lot of the navvies, "rallare" who once built the railways and did the maintenace work were syndicalists -including quite a few of those who once built the Stockholm tube. Today, our members are mostly active on the operating side, even though we do have a few infrastructure workers spread over the country.


/Igelkotten

You put me to shame. I am a union member (ASLEF), although not an activist, I know very little history on the union movement, so I'm sorry I cant be much more of help.

[Igelkotten]

Thanks for the infomration anyway, Motorman.

I suppose a lot of the details I am interested in might be lost in a dusty archive somewhere. Maybe time for an expedition with Lara Croft to Arkwright Road?

/Igelkotten

[Tom]

Jim said:

Aslef was founded in 1880 so they wqere in at the start of the opening of the Underground, I believe the NUR was also.

I think the NUR came around a bit later, I've got an RMT DVD which I think covers the history.

[Harsig]

Tom said:

I think the NUR came around a bit later, I've got an RMT DVD which I think covers the history.

According to a book I have in front of me the NUR was founded in 1913 and was created by the amalgamation of three earlier unions, the United Pointsmen's & Signalmen's Society (founded 1880), the General Railway Workers Union (founded 1890) and the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (founded 1871)

[Tom]

Just thought of another union - a number of engineering staff are represented by AMICUS (formerly the AEEU - Amalgamated Electrical and Engineering Union or something like that).