Dữ liệu 1:

A trade union is an organised group of employees who join together to maintain, and improve, the
pay and working conditions of their employment. Historically Trade Unions are organised around
“trades” (e.g. dockworkers, textile factory workers, warehouse workers, railway workers, teachers,
etc). Trade Unions have an organisational structure, usually with a General Secretary at the top,
supported by a team of professionals and volunteers who may be either appointed or elected to
their positions by the workers who constitute its membership.
Trade Unions do important work in advocating on behalf of workers to employers. This includes
individual problems at work, but also collective issues such as health and safety at work, defending
and advancing workers’ employment conditions, including pay.
This negotiation simulation regards the pay and conditions of railway workers, negotiated between
the union’s General Secretary and the lead negotiator working on behalf of a consortium of railway
companies.

Your role
You are the General Secretary for a trade union representing railway workers, called The Rail
Union. Your membership works as ticket office agents, platform and station workers, train guards,
and other onboard staff – but not the train drivers themselves. In total, you represent 81,200 railway
workers, out of 189,000 workers (i.e. 42% of all railway workers are members of The Rail Union,
which is significantly higher than the UK average, where only of 23% of workers are members of a
union).
As the General Secretary of The Rail Union, you are ultimately responsible for implementing union
policy, managing its resources, and negotiating with rail company senior management on behalf of
your membership on issues affecting your members.

The negotiation simulation

Over the last few years, the terms, and conditions of your members – the railway workers – have
deteriorated. Covid-19 has had a hugely detrimental impact on rail passenger numbers – resulting in
a considerable drop in ticket sales revenues. As a result, the Government has increased its financial
support for rail companies to protect them against losses during the pandemic. However, the
Government is now seeking to withdraw this financial support, and push for ‘reforms’ in the rail
sector.

These ‘reforms’, in practice, mean the Government is pushing for rail companies to reduce the
number of employees. For those workers who remain, a new, less generous, contract will be
imposed on them.

Now it has reached a crisis point with the Government and railway companies seeking to further
erode the pay and conditions of the workers. You need to urgently negotiate with the rail companies
to settle the dispute. If you cannot settle the dispute, you can apply pressure on the employers by
escalating it to industrial action.

“Industrial action” can include “working to contract” (sometimes called “action short of strike”) –
which is refusing to work any overtime or carrying out tasks that are beyond those outlined in
workers’ employment contracts. It can also include “strike action”. Strike action involves a large
group of workers refusing to work. By refusing to work, workers seek to disrupt the business
operations of their employer – causing the employer financial and reputational harm. However, the
employer, in turn, does not pay the workers for the time they are striking – causing financial harm
and risk to the workers.

The union members have voted to authorise you to enter negotiations on their behalf regarding
their working conditions and pay with the rail company management representative. If these
negotiations do not reach a satisfactory outcome for workers, the members have also voted 8-2 in
favour of “action short of a strike” and “strike action”.

Issues to negotiate:

1. Number of redundancies

One of the most important issues for any trade union is protecting the jobs of its membership.
The Government would like to see a reduction in the number of railway workers, and rail companies
have proposed a 12% reduction in staff workforce, through a combination of compulsory
redundancies, voluntary redundancies, and staff attrition. This represents a loss of 22,000 workers
on the railway.

You will try to protect as many jobs as you can. In fact, given the challenges caused by Covid-19 (as
railway workers are “key workers”) and the fact that the Government has targets to reduce road
traffic and increase rail traffic, you would like to see an increase in the number of workers, not a
reduction! You would ideally like an increase of 10% in staffing levels, reducing the workload for
existing workers.

You will also argue that reducing workers means increased risk on the railways: less staff in stations
and trains, including the removal of guards and catering staff, cuts to cleaning, and the closure of
almost all ticket offices. This increases the safety risk for passengers and staff, and less accessible to
the public. It will lead to further deterioration in the railway industry.

Finally, you may also argue that the Scottish and Welsh Governments have both guaranteed there
will be no compulsory redundancies and have protected staffing levels. That if the UK Government
were to reduce staff would increase reputational damage to both the UK government and railway
companies to the public.

Table 1: Number of redundancies, with points.

12% reduction : -50 Points
10% reduction : -25 Points
8% reduction : -10 Points
5% reduction : -5 Points
0% No change : +5 Points
+5% increase in staff levels : +10 Points
+10% increase in staff levels Number of redundancies, with points. :+30 Points

2. Nature of redundancies
If you accepted that there would be a reduction in the number of staff (above), then you will need to
negotiate how those redundancies will take place.
As briefly noted above, there are three ways an organisation can reduce the number of staff. These
are through:

1. Compulsory redundancy. This is when a business terminates a contract with an employee

due to business circumstances rather than due to an employees’ behavioural or
performance-related issues. Employees usually receive a ‘redundancy package’ which
includes a cash settlement.

2. Voluntary redundancy. This is when a business asks employees to voluntarily resign in

exchange for a financial package. Usually, this is most attractive to those who are near
retirement or were looking for other employment opportunities anyways.

3. Staff attrition. This is the loss of employees through a natural process of retirement and
resignation, and where the vacancy left is not filled by the employer.

You absolutely cannot accept ‘compulsory redundancies’. The union members will not accept this,
and so this is a ‘deal breaker’ for you. If the railway companies push this option on you, then you
must stop negotiating and call for a strike! A strike will disrupt the railway companies, costing them
many £millions in lost revenue every day.

If you accepted redundancies in issue (1) above, then your best-case scenario is to have a reduction
through staff attrition. However, union members will still not be happy with this because it means a
long-term reduction in staffing levels, increasing their workload over the longer term.

Table 2: Nature of redundancies, with points

Compulsory redundancies : No deal, call for strike

Voluntary redundancies : 20
Staff attrition : -5

3. Pay

The third issue that requires negotiation is pay. Pay has effectively been frozen since 2010. And now
inflation is soaring, currently at 12%; meaning that workers’ real wage1 has dramatically fallen. The
union is asking for a pay rise to compensate for the rising cost-of-living for its members.

The rail companies have offered an pay increase of 3%. But as inflation is at 12%, this represents a
significant pay cut! The union wants a proper pay rise to compensate for inflation and the increased
cost of living.

The rail company may offer more than their initial 3% pay offer, but it may be linked to job cuts or
other changes in conditions (see other negotiation points). You may have to accept compromises
elsewhere to secure a pay rise for workers. Workers will not accept a pay cut, and will strike if this is
the railway managers’ final offer.

Table 3: Percentage pay increase for workers, with points

Pay settlement
20% pay increase : +200 Points
19% pay increase : +150 Points
18% pay increase : +120 Points
17% pay increase : +100 Points
16% pay increase : +80 Points
15% pay increase : +60 Points
14% pay increase : +40 Points
13% pay increase : +30 Points
12% pay increase : +25 Points
11% pay increase : +20 Points
10% pay increase : +18 Points
9% pay increase : +15 Points
8% pay increase : +12 Points
7% pay increase : +8 Points
6% pay increase : +5 Points
5% pay increase : +3 Points
4% pay increase : +1 Points
3% pay increase : 0 (Current offer)
2% pay increase : No deal, call for strike

0% No change : No deal, call for strike

-2% pay cut : No deal, call for strike

1 Real wage refers to a person’s wages adjusted for inflation. Imagine you are paid £10,000 in 2022. In 2023
there was 10% inflation, and your salary remained the same. This means that while your income remained at
£10,000 in 2023, the value of that your wage has reduced by 10% because the costs of goods and services have
increased, so you can buy fewer things with that £10,000 in 2023 than you could in 2022.
4. Conditions
The rail companies are looking to change other aspects of railway workers’ working conditions:

Sunday Rest Day

At the moment, Sunday is a ‘rest day’ meaning that working on a Sunday is voluntary and paid at
overtime rates, which is x1.5 the hourly rate. The rail companies want to change this so that there
are no ‘rest days’, and no overtime paid on Sunday ‘rest days’. Many of our membership use the
overtime on Sundays to help support their income. It may be possible to accept losing the ‘voluntary
working’ status on Sunday, and the overtime, so long as the rail companies offer a higher wage
increase. Or conversely, members may be willing is accept a lower pay increase, but are
compensated by a more generous overtime rate on Sundays.

Reduced holiday time

At the moment, each full-time employee is entitled to 30 days of paid holiday a year, including public
holidays. The rail companies want to change this so that this is reduced to 25 days, a reduction of 5
days. As before, it may be possible to accept lower wage increases in exchange for a higher number
of paid holiday days per year.

On Call premium.
Some staff are ‘on call’ during the night, meaning that they can be called into work with 1 hours’
notice to address urgent business or emergencies. This is usually done by station staff and train
yards staff. At the moment, workers who are ‘on call’ are entitled to a £50 ‘on-call’ fee, and a further
£100 if they are called out to the station or the train yards during the night. The rail companies are
trying to change this to a flat fee of between £50-£79, regardless if the workers are called out during
the night, or not.

Keep Sunday rest day voluntary : +5 Points

Voluntary Sunday Rest day working is removed : -10 Points

Sunday overtime is paid at x2.5 hourly rate : +10 Points

Sunday overtime is paid at x2.0 hourly rate : +5 Points

Sunday overtime is paid at x1.5 hourly rate (current rate) : +1 Points

Sunday overtime is paid at x1.0 hourly rate (standard rate) : -10 Points

Paid holiday entitlement increased to 40 days : +10 Points

Paid holiday entitlement increased to 35 days : +5 Points

Paid holiday entitlement remains at 30 days : 0 Points

Paid holiday entitlement decreased to 25 days : -5 Points

Paid holiday entitlement decreased to 20 days : -10 Points

Paid holiday entitlement decreased to 15 days : -15 Points

On call premium flat rate >£150 : +10 Points

On call premium flat rate between £120 and £149 : +8 Points

On call premium flat rate between £100 and £119 : +1 Points

On call premium flat rate between £80 and £99 : -1 Points

On call premium flat rate between £60 and £79 : -5 Points

On call premium flat rate between <£60 : -10 Points

Dữ liệu 2:
Introduction
A consortium is an organised group of employer organisations who join together to maintain, and
advance the financial and collective interests of their members – the railway companies. Consortia,
like The Railway Consortium, lobbies the Government for legislation and policies favourable to
railway companies, promotes the railway companies to the public, and negotiates with trade unions.

A trade union is an organised group of employees who join together to maintain, and improve, the
pay and working conditions of their employment. Historically Trade Unions are organised around
“trades” (e.g. dockworkers, textile factory workers, warehouse workers, railway workers, teachers,
etc). Trade Unions have an organisational structure, usually with a General Secretary at the top,
supported by a team of professionals and volunteers who may be either appointed or elected to
their positions by the workers who constitute its membership.

This negotiation simulation regards the pay and conditions of railway workers, negotiated between
the union’s General Secretary and you, the lead negotiator working on behalf of a consortium of
railway companies.

Your role
You are the lead negotiator for The Railway Consortium. Your membership are the employers who
operate and run Britain railways. The membership of the consortium includes London and Northern
Railways, Westcoast Lines, Southern Eastern Railways, Themies Link, and Southurn Railways. In total
you represent 15 rail companies, that employ 189,000 workers. 81,200 of those workers are
members of the Rail Union. This represents 42% of all railway workers (less than half, but well above
the 23% of workers who are in a union across the UK as a whole).

As the lead negotiator for The Railway Consortium, you are responsible for implementing the rail
companies’ policies and advancing their interests. In this simulation, you are to negotiate with The
Rail Union over proposed changes to the pay and working conditions of railway workers’
employment.

The negotiation simulation

Over the last few years Covid-19 has had a hugely detrimental impact on rail passenger numbers –
resulting in a considerable drop in ticket sales revenues. As a result, the UK Government has
increased its financial support for rail companies (i.e. your members) to protect them again financial
losses during the pandemic. However, the Government is now seeking to withdraw this financial
support, and is pushing the railway companies for labour ‘reforms’ in the railway sector.

The rail companies cannot continue the way they did before the pandemic. We need to reduce the
amount of money we spend on staff, and automate as many systems and processes as possible.
As part of these reforms, we are looking to cut back on the number of staff we are employing, as
well as make much-needed savings in our massive wage bill. We also need our staff to become more
flexible to deliver for our customers and the secure the rail industry for the future. We will have to
impose new, less generous, contracts on the railway workers.

The trade union, The Rail Union, have reacted badly, and is now in dispute with the rail companies.
So far the rail companies have not responded to the demands of the trade union. The unions have
now called for industrial action

“Industrial action” can include “working to contract” (sometimes called “action short of strike”) –
which is when staff refuses to work any overtime or carry out tasks that are beyond those outlined
in workers’ employment contracts. It can also include “strike action”. Strike action involves a large
group of workers refusing to work. By refusing to work, workers seek to disrupt the business
operations of their employer (i.e. your membership), causing the rail companies financial and
reputational harm. However, the employer, in turn, does not pay the workers for the time they are
striking – causing financial harm and risk to the workers.

The threat of strikes means that this dispute has reached a crisis point, and the Government has
become unhappy. The rail companies need to urgently negotiate with the Rail Union to settle the
dispute before it turns into a strike. If you cannot settle the dispute, and a strike is called, then the
Government is threatening to either fine or revoke rail licenses for the rail companies. You cannot let
the union call a strike!

The railway companies which form the Consortium have authored you to enter into negotiations on
their behalf regarding renegotiating the working conditions and pay of the railway workers with the
General Secretary of The Rail Union. If these negotiations end as a strike, then the government will
impose large fines on your membership, and potentially lose their licenses to operate trains.

Issues to negotiate:

1. Number of redundancies
One of the most important issues for the rail companies is to try and reduce wage costs by reducing
the number of workers.

The rail companies want to reduce the number of workers by 12%, through a combination of
compulsory redundancies, voluntary redundancies, and staff attrition. This would represent a loss of
22,000 workers on the railway, saving the rail companies £800million per year. This is a high priority
for the rail companies because it will save so much money.

However, the Government also wants to reduce road traffic and increase rail traffic to combat
climate change, and this may actually mean there is a need for more staff on the railways in the
coming years to handle increased passenger and freight traffic, not less.

Furthermore, the public is unhappy about fewer rail staff working on the railways. Reducing staff
means fewer guards on trains, fewer catering staff, cuts to cleaning, and the closure of almost all
ticket offices. The public is not happy about this.

Table 1: Number of redundancies, with points.

12% reduction : +200 Points

10% reduction : +100 Points
8% reduction : +50 Points
5% reduction : +25 Points
0% No change : -25 Points
+5% increase in staff levels : -50 Points
+10% increase in staff levels : -100 Points

2. Nature of redundancies

If you managed to get the trade union to accept that there would be a reduction in the number of
staff (above), then you will need to negotiate how those redundancies will take place.

As briefly noted above, there are three ways an organisation can reduce the number of staff. These
are through:

1. Compulsory redundancy. This is when a business terminates a contract with an employee

due to business circumstances rather than due to an employees’ behavioural or
performance-related issues. Employees usually receive a ‘redundancy package’ which
includes a cash settlement.
2. Voluntary redundancy. This is when a business asks employees to voluntarily resign in
exchange for a financial package. Usually, this is most attractive to those who are near
retirement or were looking for other employment opportunities anyways.
3. Staff attrition. This is the loss of employees through a natural process of retirement and
resignation, and where the vacancy left is not filled by the employer.

The Scottish and Welsh Governments have both guaranteed that there will be no compulsory
redundancies and have protected staffing levels. If the UK Government were to let rail companies
reduce staff through compulsory redundancies, then it would increase the reputational damage to
both the UK Government and railway companies in the eyes of the public.

However, using compulsory redundancies is the quickest and cheapest way to reduce the number of
staff. As such, while it comes with reputational risk, the rail companies would prefer compulsory
redundancies over voluntary redundancy or staff attrition.

If you accepted redundancies in issue (1) above, then your best-case scenario is to have a reduction
through compulsory redundancies, but other options are available too, and have points attached to
them.

Table 2: Nature of redundancies, with points

Compulsory redundancies : +25 Points

Voluntary redundancies : +20 Points
Staff attrition : +5 Points

3. Pay

The third issue that requires negotiation is pay. Inflation is soaring, currently at 12%; meaning that
workers’ real wage1 has dramatically fallen. The union is asking for a pay rise to compensate for the
rising cost-of-living for its members. However, with Covid-19, the number of rail passangers has
dropped, and the rail companies are now highly reliant on the UK Government for funding to
prevent financial losses. The rail companies argue that they cannot afford to offer more than a 3%
increase – even if this represents a pay cut.

As the representative of the rail companies, you will argue that you understand that a 3% pay cut is
below inflation, and therefore a real-term pay cut, but simply put, the rail companies cannot afford
to pay any more.

If you are to offer more than the 3% pay offer, then it must be linked to more job cuts or other
changes in conditions (see other negotiation points).

If you offer to the Rail Union:

❖ A 5% pay rise, then you must link it to at least of 5% redundancies in item 1.
❖ A 8% pay rise, then you must link it to at least 8% redundancies in item 1.
❖ A 10% pay rise, then you must link it to at least 12% reduction in item 1.
❖ A 12% pay rise, then you must link it to at least 12% reduction in item 1, AND ‘compulsory
redundancies’ in item 2.

Table 3: Percentage pay increase for workers, with points

>15% pay increase : No deal
15% pay increase : No Deal
14% pay increase : -400 Points
13% pay increase : -200 Points
12% pay increase : -100 Points
11% pay increase : -50 Points
10% pay increase : -25 Points
9% pay increase : -20 Points
8% pay increase : -15 Points
7% pay increase : -8 Points
6% pay increase : -4 Points
5% pay increase : -2 Points
4% pay increase : -1 Points
3% pay increase : 0 (current offer)
2% pay increase : +100 Points
0% No change :+200 Points
-2% pay cut : +500 Points

1 Real wage refers to a person’s wages adjusted for inflation. Imagine you are paid £10,000 in 2022. In 2023
there was 10% inflation, and your salary remained the same. This means that while your income remained at
£10,000 in 2023, the value of that your wage has reduced by 10% because the costs of goods and services have
increased, so you can buy fewer things with that £10,000 in 2023 than you could in 2022.

4. Conditions
The rail companies are looking to change other aspects of railway workers’ working conditions:

Sunday Rest Day

At the moment, Sunday is a ‘rest day’ meaning that working on a Sunday is voluntary and paid at
overtime rates, which is x1.5 the hourly rate. The rail companies want to change this so that there
are no ‘rest days’, and no overtime paid on Sunday ‘rest days’. This way, we can rota staff in to work
on Sundays when we need them, without having to rely on workers’ volunteering for Sunday shifts.

Reduced holiday time

At the moment, each full-time employee is entitled to 30 days of paid holiday a year, including public
holidays. The rail companies want to change this so that this is reduced to 25 days, a reduction of 5
days. As before, it may be possible to offer higher wage increases in exchange for getting workers to
have fewer paid holiday days per year.

On Call premium.
Some staff are ‘on call’ during the night, meaning that they can be called into work with 1 hours’
notice to address urgent business or emergencies. This is usually done by station staff and train
yards staff. At the moment, workers who are ‘on call’ are entitled to a £50 ‘on-call’ fee, and a further
£100 if they are called out to the station or the train yards during the night. The rail companies are
trying to change this to a flat fee of between £50-£79, regardless if the workers are called out during
the night, or not. This will save the rail companies money on call out fees.
Keep Sunday rest day voluntary : -10 Points
Voluntary Sunday Rest day working is removed : +10 Points

Sunday overtime is paid at x2.5 hourly rate : -15 Points

Sunday overtime is paid at x2.0 hourly rate : -10 Points
Sunday overtime is paid at x1.5 hourly rate (current rate) : -1 Points
Sunday overtime is paid at x1.0 hourly rate (standard rate) : +20 Points

Paid holiday entitlement increased to 40 days : -10 Points

Paid holiday entitlement increased to 35 days : -5 Points
Paid holiday entitlement remains at 30 days : -1 Points
Paid holiday entitlement decreased to 25 days : -10 Points
Paid holiday entitlement decreased to 20 days : -20 Points
Paid holiday entitlement decreased to 15 days : +30 Points

On call premium flat rate >£150 : -10 Points

On call premium flat rate between £120 and £149 : -8 Points
On call premium flat rate between £100 and £119 : -1 Points
On call premium flat rate between £80 and £99 : +1 Points
On call premium flat rate between £60 and £79 : +10 Points
On call premium flat rate between <£60 : +20 Points

Dựa vào dữ liệu 1 và 2, đóng vai the lead negotiator for The Railway Consortium ở dữ liệu 2 trả lời các
câu hỏi sau:
What is the negotiation about?
What are the key problems that this negotiation seeks to resolve?
What did you/your counterpart want to achieve (i.e. your interests) in this negotiation?