Unholy union that commuters fear

To the London commuter, the sight of the two most powerful men in the rail industry - union leaders Mick Rix and Bob Crow - virtually arm-in-arm sent a clearly distinguishable shiver through their ranks. So too the the mainline operators and London Underground.

For years Aslef, the train drivers' union, and the RMT, the rail industry's largest, have been rivals. Aslef members considered themselves the rail "elite". Any talk of merger between the two organisations, as used to arise now and again, was met with vitriol from both camps.

What a difference now. There is a close - and this is what really worries the train companies - genuinely warm relationship between the two hierarchies. Only yesterday the controlling executive committees of both unions met at Aslef 's headquarters in Hampstead.

The agenda was to plan the next strike ballot on the Tube. As the Evening Standard revealed last night, the result of this collusion is the threat of 48-hour strikes on the Tube, starting in March. In a dramatic show of support for each other, the unions will combine any future action and that will halt the entire London Underground network, used by three million passengers a day.

Next Monday and Tuesday, 350,000 passengers using South West Trains face their third 48-hour stoppage - with a fourth the following week in yet another pay row. The chiefs of Connex, the busiest of the commuter train companies, meet today with RMT leaders - again over pay. This industrial action is sparking growing nervousness throughout the industry.

"Unity is strength" is the union cry - particularly when just two unions control the entire national and Tube networks, with an implicit threat of holding the industry to ransom. The Tories claimed that one of the intended benefits of privatising the mainline railways was that it would stop collective bargaining for the industry and bring a halt to national rail strikes.

In fact, the opposite has happened. While officially opposing privatisation, Aslef members have benefited in hard cash terms following the demise of British Rail. The basic salary of drivers has more than doubled to an average of between £28,000 and £30,000 (albeit at the loss of the odd allowance) as the privatised passenger train companies have sought to retain their staff.

A shortage of drivers is the essence of the current mainline rail disputes. The fuse was lit just over a year ago, when Sea Containers-owned GNER - which operates East Coast services out of King's Cross - agreed a 21 per cent pay rise for drivers.

This pushed their salaries up to £33,000, topping the UK rail pay chart and level with the Channel Tunnel Eurostar staff.

Aslef declared then that GNER had set the "benchmark" for the forthcoming pay rounds, and the results we are now seeing are strikes at South West Trains and in other parts of the UK.

As the train companies edged up drivers' pay, so other grades represented by the RMT - mainly station and ticket inspectors and guards - became disenchanted and the "pay parity" war began.

Mr Rix, 38, who started work for BR at 16, supported Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party but was quick to realise that he would do better working within the Labour Party, which he has now rejoined.

Polished, forceful and likeable, there is no mistaking that he retains his hard-Left leanings. He has campaignedvigorously and successfully for pay increases, a fact that is viewed by many as one of the principal reasons he wrested control of the union from Labour stalwart Lew Adams three years ago.

Mr Crow, 41, currently assistant general secretary of the RMT, has been equally robust on pay. He is far to the Left of the Labour Party but there is a rapport between him and Mr Rix.

As the Aslef chief tours the country, boosting pay for his drivers, so does Mr Crow - seeking parity for his members on the back of the drivers' increases.

It is easy to see why the train companies fear the "ratchet" effect on pay of the two unions working in tandem. The chief of one London commuter company - currently engaged in pay negotiations - said: "There is no knowing where this is going to stop."

The outlook - both for the train companies and, more importantly, passengers - is grim.

Aslef has agreed a new package for its Eurostar drivers which, by the end of this year, will put them on £40,000. So the whole vicious cycle could then start all over again.