White hart I could not agree with you more. I have read this and the pensions thread with growing concern. It appears that many people on here make an assumption that management are stupid and do not know what they are doing. This could not be further from the truth. A short trawl back over these post sees ATCO's against CTC against ATSA's against Engineers. NSL against NERL. Productivity against profit. This atmosphere is exactly what they are trying to create. Every topic posted on Natsnet right now is deliberately engineered to lower the morale of the workforce. You doubt me? Compare the posts from one year ago and look at the tone and wording used.
Management are deliberately attempting to create splits within the workforce so that they can use the collective bargaining of the workforce against us.
In the case of the present negotiations they state the economic situation to propose a mediocre pay rise that is dependent on changes to working practices agreements. Those changes ( for the most part) only affect NSL units thereby splitting the majority NERL vote. This they do this at the same time as making ATSA's and CTC personnel redundant. They claim hardship but will still post a profit for this year and despite there doom and gloom for the following 12 months will still pay a dividend to the shareholders.