THREE times members of train drivers’ union Aslef have been asked if they wanted to strike to defend their wages, their jobs and the conditions in which they work.

Three times they have responded with a resounding Yes.

The second and third ballots each produced bigger majorities than the one before.

Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan sees the ballot results and the strikes as the “voice of the workers” and it has had an emotional effect on him.

“I have never felt so humbled as general secretary than in the last 12 months,” he told the Morning Star.

“Bigger and bigger votes for strike action. They are in it for the long haul.”

In some respects Aslef’s strike action is history repeating itself.

The drivers’ first union “lodge” was founded in Sheffield in South Yorkshire in 1879 in the middle of an economic depression (read cost-of-living crisis).

The wages and working hours of train drivers and firemen were under attack by privately run train companies whose prime motivation was profit.

The arduous jobs of the coal-shovelling firemen on locomotives may have disappeared with the end of the age of steam, but the greed of private rail operators is still around in abundance.

Aslef’s founding conference was held in Manchester in 1880. In 1881 Aslef staged its first strike against wage cuts and long working hours.

Today Aslef members are striking after almost five years of frozen wages — cuts in pay whose severity is governed by fluctuating levels of inflation.

“By February next year we will have gone half a decade without a pay rise,” says Whelan.

Today train drivers also work long hours. They have to, because train operators refuse to employ enough drivers to meet the companies’ timetable commitments. It’s cheaper to pay drivers overtime than it is to employ enough of them to meet the schedules.

That’s what makes Aslef’s bans on overtime so effective. It’s a weapon handed to the drivers by the operators’ greed.

Whelan says the drivers’ strike on Saturday and Wednesday is a first for Aslef in that it has a specific target — the Tory Party conference in Manchester.

That’s a response to false accusations by the government and its fawning media commentators that the drivers have previously targeted specific events to maximise public suffering.

Last year Richard Madeley, on the Good Morning Britain TV programme, accused the union of targeting Christmas for strike action in an interview with Whelan. Whelan remained cool and calm as Madeley ranted.

The interview backfired on Madeley. Apart from him being made to look like an idiot, the interview was replayed tens of thousands of times online.

The union was this year accused of targeting other public events with strike action including the Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool on May 9 and the FA Cup Final on June 3.

Having been falsely accused of targeting the events, Aslef decided to do so for real. In the drivers’ sights is the Conservative Party’s annual conference in Manchester.

They are striking today, Saturday, when Tory delegates will be travelling to the city, and on Wednesday when the delegates will be making their way home.

“We weren’t targeting anything,” says Whelan. “But they accused us, and for the first time we are targeting somebody.

“Those who have falsely accused us of targeting events in the past to hide their own shortcomings and bad faith have inspired us to take action on these days.”

The drivers will be working normally on Sunday, the second day of the conference, when thousands of protesters are expected to travel to Manchester for an anti-Tory demonstration organised by the People’s Assembly.

In addition to feeling humbled by his members’ determination, Whelan has been moved by continuing public support for the drivers and other striking rail workers.

“For the first time in our history transport strikes have continuing public support,” he says. “Normally there is very little public approval.

“But the support is still there and it is massive — people coming up to us with biscuits and cakes.”

That support may have been influenced by the stubborn determination of the rail companies and the government to shut almost 1,000 railway station ticket offices at a huge personal cost to hundreds of thousands of elderly, frail and disabled people, and against widespread public opposition.

The government is also refusing to publish the results of an equality impact assessment of the planned closures.

Another part of Aslef’s struggle was the launch two weeks ago of a campaign inspired by the Where’s Wally? series of children’s puzzle books, the first of which was published in the 1980s.

Aslef’s Where’s Harper? campaign is aimed at Transport Secretary Mark Harper who hasn’t met Whelan and the Aslef negotiating team since January.

Harper’s refusal to negotiate is another reason for targeting the Tory Party conference with strike action — to tell Harper and Rail Minister Huw Merriman to negotiate.

The Tory Party conference is an opportunity to deliver Aslef’s campaign call in Manchester, but with so many campaign groups taking their causes to the city — for example there will be a Palestine Solidarity Campaign “wedge” on Sunday’s march — Aslef will instead take part in solidarity actions with other workers on the days the drivers are on strike, including a rally in support of workers at a London hospital on Wednesday.

Whelan is only too well aware that the attack by the government and employers on train drivers and other rail workers is only one part of its wider attack on all workers. 

Another manifestation of the attack is the Minimum Service Levels Bill which forces strikers to cross their own picket lines and provide services at a level decided arbitrarily by the relevant secretary of state.

The legislation is aimed at neutralising the effect strikes have, making them pointless.

Whelan says it simply won’t work. Indeed it will have the opposite effect.

“Minimum service levels will make strikes three times as long because workers will have to have more strikes to have the same effect,” he said.

He says the malice of the Tories and the greed of their corporate paymasters have changed the nature of work in Britain.

“The slogan for the Tory conference could be: ‘Britain: the country where work does not pay’,” he says.

“Most people in work are drawing benefits. Their wages are so low that they have to be subsidised,” he adds. “While 60,000 Tory Party members are doing fine, 14 million kids are going hungry outside term time.”

Pure hatred seems to be a driver of today’s Tory philosophy and government actions, says Whelan.

He cites Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s latest outpouring of venom a few days ago against refugees at a meeting of a right-wing think tank in Washington.

“We have a government that hates us, that hates so many people — asylum-seekers, refugees, homosexuals, poor people, workers,” he says.

“There doesn’t seem to be anyone in the world this government doesn’t hate except themselves and the 1 per cent,” he notes, referring to Britain’s obscenely rich minority, which has grown even richer during 13 years of Tory rule.

“There’s corruption, 12 years of economic illiteracy, council budget cuts. They have destroyed public services, they have destroyed the country. It’s time for them to go,” he says.

Whelan had begun our conversation by saying that he feels humbled by his members’ determination to win their battle on pay, jobs and the conditions they work in, as seen in the ballot results and repeated strike action.

He also feels pride in representing them.

“This isn’t about a general secretary or a union executive committee,” he says. “It’s about our members.

“We will keep on striking to make the voice of our members heard. We will keep fighting to be the voice of our workers.”