The Regional Council (with the very great help of the Stations & Revenue Grades Committee Secretary!) has been compiling statistical information on membership levels on station groups and traincrew depots. We calculated the density (percentage of RMT members at each location) for stations and trains, and will soon carry out the same exercise for other grades.

We discussed the statistics at our Regional Council Executive meeting, and will be sending them to all branches, asking them to discuss them. We believe that they are a useful in guiding branches and grades committees on where to target recruitment efforts.

It would not be appropriate to publish the detailed statistics here on the website, but the following notes will be useful for activists.

Subject to the two qualifications noted at the end, we can identify the following factors and trends:

RMT tends to have higher density where:

• lots of members are active in the union
• reps are effective
• reps are accountable through the branch
• the union is militant
• the union has stood up to a particularly nasty management regime
• the branch is effective

Stations groups with lots of stations (with fewer staff on each) tend to have lower RMT density – staff don’t work alongside the rep as often; and working alone can lead people to think in a more individualist way.

Among drivers, RMT tends to have a higher density at more junior depots.

There is a correlation between depots and the station groups on which they are located – often, depots with high density (ie. percentage of staff who are RMT members) located on station groups also with high density; similarly with low-density locations.

There are historical factors eg. “this has always been an ASLEF stronghold”; or “we’ve always had good reps there”.

There are geographical/political factors eg. depots/groups in Buckinghamshire, where there is a lot of Tory support, tend to have lower density.

In locations with a high number of employees, we often have lots of members but not necessarily a very high density; similarly, in locations with smaller number of employees, we can have a high density without having loads of members.

There is a mild trend that the more locations (station groups + traincrew depots) a branch covers, the lower its overall membership density.

Two qualifications:

The statistics are only as accurate and up-to-date as the membership list they are based on. Keeping the membership list accurate and up-to-date will help us to produce accurate statistics.

The 'densities' are a percentage of the establishment staffing figure for that location, not the actual number of staff who work there. So if there are vacancies at a location, the percentage will be artifically low; if, however, your location is 'over-establishment', the percentage figure will be artificially high.