Contingency planning vital for employers at risk of industrial action, says expert

Only 5% of trains had arrived more than 10 minutes late by 6pm on the day of the strike by members of the RMT union, according to Virgin East Coast. The company said that it had "worked hard to ensure there are comprehensive contingency plans in place" which allowed it to run its timetable as normal on Monday 3 October.

The RMT union described the company's action as "the biggest scabbing operation in recent rail history"; which industrial relations expert Christopher Mordue of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said was "tantamount to an admission that the strike failed to cause significant disruption to services". The union instead emphasised that its members had "made their point" by highlighting safety concerns, and that their support for the action had held up, he said.

"Wherever you stand on the dispute, the public war of words is likely to conceal a more nuanced picture," Mordue said.

"Virgin East Coast is right to emphasise the statistics showing the bulk of services ran on time without RMT members on board," he said. "What has not been published is the effect on the bottom line, as passengers may have opted to cancel journeys due to the threatened disruption and the elaborate contingency plans may have carried extra costs."

"Planning for potential industrial action and testing your company's resilience to industrial action that could happen is key to being able to ride out disputes. Given that the union was not able to prevent the trains running on this occasion they needed to win the PR battle – but here, again, they appear to have been outflanked by Virgin East Coast, which was able to deploy its 95% Public Performance Measure statistic," he said.

PPM is a measure used by the UK's train companies to record the punctuality and reliability of passenger rail services.

Up to 1,800 members of the union went on strike between 12:01am and 11:59pm on Monday 3 October, according to the RMT. The union is in dispute with Virgin East Coast over the company's plans to give a single employee "responsibility for the customer experience" on each train, which it has claimed will affect working conditions and safety and put up to 200 jobs at risk, according to the BBC.

Virgin was able to run a full timetable with some minor changes on the day of the strike, which included three route alterations because of crew shortages, the BBC said.

The 2016 Trade Union Act will create new hurdles for unions, particularly those operating in the transport sector and others deemed to be 'essential public services', according to Christopher Mordue. However, the threat of damaging strike action had "not gone away", with the dynamics of disputes instead changing towards "faster escalation and more intensive action" and increasing use of so-called 'leverage campaigns' short of strike action, he said.

"Employers that fail to prepare will be caught cold by these changing tactics, lose business and money, and be in a weaker position to negotiate a resolution or win a war of attrition," he said. "By the time you receive a ballot notice, your options for maintaining business continuity may already be limited."

"As with any crisis management, putting in the groundwork before a dispute happens will put you in the best position to respond. Robust contingency plans for strikes, pickets and protests, work to rule campaigns and leverage action will ensure that you are ready for whatever the union may throw at you. At Pinsent Masons, our team of industrial relations specialists can work with you to 'war game' a range of scenarios," he said.