Nobody needs reminding about Ryanair. In Irish Rail the company is suing all eleven members of the executive committee of the Irish Locomotive Drivers Association, looking for hundreds of thousands of pounds in damages arising from the ILDA taking industrial action. Having no licence means they have no legal immunity and can be sued for loss of earnings by their employer. And the silence from most union leaders has been deafening. There has also been resistance.
Strikes do still break out.
Overtime bans and 'work to rules' are still used. But we should be clear that the ideology of 'partnership' is strong. That is part of the reason for the nurses putting such emphasis on their being a 'special case' rather than simply saying 'we do the work, we want to be well paid for it'. This doesn't mean that workers are leaving the unions but it does mean that the unions are not attracting new areas of membership in significant numbers. This sector has traditionally been more difficult to unionise due to the small size of workplaces and greater casualisation.