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RMT expressed its shock at the death of two workers in an accident involving a road- rail vehicle at Hednesford and extended its sympathy to the families of those killed. “Our first thoughts are with the families of those killed and with all those affected by this horrific incident,” RMT general secretary Bob Crow said. He said that there was an urgent need to find out exactly how the awful tragedy happened and pointed out that there has already been far too many incidents involving road-rail vehicles. “After the tragedy at Tebay we called for an inquiry into safety in the fragmented, privatised railway regime, but the chaos has continued. “Today we renew that call, and once more we demand that all track renewals be brought back in-house in one single, sensible structure with a clear and transparent line of command,” he said. RMT news – Essential reading for today ’s transport worker 6 RMT called for the northern rail franchise to be brought back in-house following the failure of the Strategic Rail Authority to negotiate a contract to transfer the services to preferred bidder Serco-Ned before the October 17 deadline. Responding to news that Arriva Trains Northern and First North Western would be asked to continue to run services they were supposed to surrender on October 17, RMT general secretary Bob Crow pointed out that franchising out rail services was costing millions. “This mess is going to cost even more, and will create massive uncertainty for rail workers and passengers alike. If they can’t sort out a contract on time, what hope is there for Northern rail services?” Bob asked. RMT’s parliamentary group put down an early day motion maintaining that the delay, taken alongside recent reports that the number of passenger franchises will be reduced from 25 to 16 by 2011, highlighted wider problems facing rail passenger services. It said the government should take steps to stabilise passenger services and bring Northern Rail into the public sector as has been successfully done on South Eastern Trains. SET, the only franchise being operated in the public sector, continued to show one of the greatest rates of improvement with punctuality rising from 84.2 to 86.5 per cent last month. “For peak services SET has bucked the trend and registered an improvement while the average is down. It would be madness to press ahead with plans to re-privatise it,” Bob said. The parliamentary group has also put down EDM 1626 pointing out that the Virgin cross country franchise also faced an uncertain future and called for it not to be broken up but returned to the public sector. New Labour faced further pressure to act after a motion was overwhelmingly passed at party conference in Brighton last month to re-nationalise the railways. However, transport secretary Alistair Darling said that the government would ignore the vote. Bob Crow said that it was a further sign that the public had had enough of privati- sation. “The rail operators alone are getting over £2 billion a year in subsidies – that’s a third more in real terms than in British Rail days. “A publicly owned, publicly accountable and publicly run railway is what Britain wants – it’s time for the government to deliver it,” he said. Bring Northern Rail back in-house Court imposes strike ban at EWS THE HIGH Court in London upheld an injunction banning strike action and an overtime ban by 1,300 members at rail- freight company EWS earlier this month. The strike ban was imposed on the grounds that the union did not give notice of its ballot to EWS and EWSI separately – despite the union never having been told of the latter’s existence. The court found that there were no irregularities in the conduct of the ballot itself. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that the union would be appealing against the decision in the high court of appeal and re-balloting EWS staff as soon as possible. “This court decision is ludicrous, EWS staff were never made aware they were working for a separate company as no separate terms and conditions exist for EWSI,” he said. Two 48-hour strikes and an overtime ban had been planned over the company cutting jobs across the country by stealth and attacking terms and conditions of staff, while managers are enjoying fat bonuses. Since the loss of mail on rail the company has been withdrawing groundstaff, imposing new rosters and generally undermining members’ conditions, while loading duties onto drivers and compromising safety. The union has raised these issues time and again, but none has been resolved and industrial relations at the company are at an all-time low. RMT MEMBERS at Eurostar are to vote on an improved pay, conditions and grading offer following negotiations with the company. Around 330 engineering, maintenance and office staff had voted by more than six to one to strike, joining 160 customer services staff in dispute over a range of issues outstanding from the 2003 pay and conditions claim. The company finally came up with an improved offer during last-minute talks, and after consultation with members the RMT executive agreed to put it to a referendum with a recommendation to accept. Under the deal, customer-service team members at Waterloo currently on pay ranging from £18,500 to £19,300 will from November 1 receive £20,780, while those at Ashford currently on between £13,500 and £17,036 will receive £17,780. Assistant general secretary Pat Sirkorski said substantial progress has been made for a fair rate for the job for terminal, platform and customer-service team members, and it meant that a complex and unfair salary- banding system would be gone for good. “The deal means pay increases next month ranging from 4.4 per cent to as much as 32 per cent for the very lowest-paid customer- services members,” he said. The company also conceded the principle of an optional nine-day fortnight for office staff to be implemented by next May, and has agreed to develop a and fair evaluation system for office staff. The company has also agreed to negotiate with other train-operating companies to introduce travel concessionary travel for all staff and to report back no later than January. Eurostar branch secretary Mick Lynch said that the union had made it clear to Eurostar that failure to make progress at the talks would have resulted in further strike action. “This improved offer would not have been won without the tremendous show of solidarity by all RMT members at Eurostar of all grades,” Mike said. Eurostar improves offer following strike threat RMT expresses shock at fatal Hednesford accident