TUC report / Parliamentary report

I T IS time to renationalise the rail network, RMT general secretary Bob Crow told TUC delegates at TUC Congress in Brighton last month. Welcoming moves to bring rail maintenance back in-house and to bring South Eastern Trains back into public ownership, Bob urged the government to bring all rail operating franchises back together in a single, publicly owned and publicly accountable structure. “The only thing privatisation has delivered is huge profits for the privateers at the expense of the railway industry, our members and the travelling public” Bob Crow said with full backing of TUC delegates. “We need to explode the myth that re- nationalisation will cost a fortune in compensation – once the operating franchises are up you simply take back the keys,” he said. Bob also told a very successful joint fringe meeting that privatisation had failed the railways and was failing London Underground. “The self-same privateers not good enough to maintain the national railways are wreaking havoc in exchange for huge, guaranteed and risk-free profits,” he said. RMT also raised the need of public control over our declining shipping industry which was ditching British jobs in favour of employing foreign crew for a fraction of the pay. “Millions are also being poured into the pockets of shipowners, through a tonnage tax-relief scheme which has failed to deliver jobs for UK seafarers. “It is obscene that shipowners should receive millions in tax relief while continuing to sack UK seafarers and replace them with super-exploited and often dangerously overworked overseas crews. “We need a direct link between the tonnage tax and jobs and training, and we need an end to the exemption of shipowners from the Race Relations Act,” Bob Crow said. Trade union rights DELEGATES backed an RMT call for a campaign of trade-union action to end Britain’s repressive anti-union laws. The union urged support for a TUC national rally and lobby of parliament for union rights. RMT president Tony Donaghey told delegates that while the government was going to abolish unfairness to foxes it was high time that a Labour government abolished unfairness to working people. “Here we are, seven years into a Labour government, and we still suffer the most repressive anti-union laws in Europe,” he said. Tony pointed out that when RMT members at Stagecoach in Devon were on strike, it was fine for the company to bus in scabs from other Stagecoach subsidiaries. “But if we had called trade unionists in those self-same subsidiaries to take action in support of their colleagues we’d have been hauled through the courts. “It seems that solidarity action is fine for the bosses, but not for working people. “We need employment rights from day one. We need a charter of workers’ rights. We need the automatic right to re- instatement for dismissed workers who win industrial tribunals,” he said to applause. RMT delegate Paula Mason (pictured front page) backed the call for rights from day one and rights for agency workers. “Workers should not have to suffer the indignity of Mickey Mouse contracts that do nothing to protect their rights at work,” she said. Bosses in the dock BOSSES responsible for the deaths of workers must be held to account, Bob Crow told delegates. Calling for corporate manslaughter legislation to be included in the next Queen’s Speech, he said that it was one Labour promise that must be kept. “We owe it to the families of our members who died at Tebay, and to those of the countless numbers killed in avoidable tragedies, year after year after year, to make sure that this legislation is enacted – now, and not in the dim and distant future. “We need to make sure that bosses look after their road-rail vehicles as well as they look after their company cars, or face the prospect of prison. “You’d have though Tebay would at least be a wake-up call, but there are still runaway incidents happening with alarming regularity – we’ve counted three since Tebay,” he said. RMT has been calling for an inquiry into safety in the fragmented industry since the Time to put the public back in transport 8 TUC REPORT RMT’s delegation played a leading role at last month’s TUC congress STAND: Bob shares a joke with RMT delegate Phil Boston at this year’s expanded union stall at Congress RMT delegates attending the Trade Unions Congress held in Brighton last month 9 RMT parliamentary column B EFORE the illegal expulsion of the RMT from the Labour Party, we had laid the basis for last month’s historic Labour Party Conference decision to renationalise the railways through its work in the policy forum process despite bitter opposition from the leadership. It is clear that the government’s immediate intention is to ignore this policy and continue with the failed experiment with the privateers. Even more galling were government attempts to distort the picture by claiming that ending the chaos and fragmentation of rail privatisation would cost the taxpayer £22 billion. You don’t need a degree in maths to work out that public ownership would not cost a penny. In fact, it would be cheaper than continuing with pouring vast public subsidies into the coffers of private companies whose main interest in the network is how much money to take out of it. Despite this opposition, the RMT parliamentary group will now campaign to ensure that rail re-nationalisation becomes government policy. The RMT group will also continue to press the government on fire safety regulations on rail and metro networks following the report that the regulations were to be watered down. These regulations were introduced as a direct result of the 1987 Kings Cross fire on the recommendation of the Fennell Report, and it was deeply disturbing when the government tabled plans to do away with them. Our intervention has already helped ensure that the House of Commons Regulatory Reform Committee has urged the government to keep fire- safety legislation that lays down minimum staffing levels and other safety standards for underground and some mainline stations. T HE RMT group also continues to campaign on the tonnage tax. Following the shock announcement by P&O of plans to slash over 1,000 jobs, it is necessary now more than ever to highlight the fact that companies in receipt of the tonnage tax are busy slashing services and jobs or replacing British ratings with cheap foreign labour. P&O is one of the many shipowners to benefit from tonnage-tax handouts that have cost the tax-payer over £100 million to date - it is high time that the government started asking for a commitment to retaining UK seafarers’ jobs in return. It was also not very edifying to learn that the Chamber of Shipping held a fringe meeting at the Labour conference under the title ‘Ensuring Jobs For Our Growing Fleet’ while companies continue to slash services. The situation at P&O graphically demonstrates the sort of problems facing all workers such as the lack of consultation or a proper framework of employment rights. This once more highlights the need for RMT to have a political fund in order to campaign against such injustices. Remember, there is no legal obligation for the employers to hold such a fund and they can lobby politicians as much as they like for changes in the law to assist them increases their profits. Presently, trade unions do not have this luxury and must leap through many legalistic hoops, such as balloting members, in order to campaign on issues that affect their members. You will be receiving your ballot form soon, so remember to vote Yes in order to keep up the campaign to defend your interests at work. John McDonnell MP Vote to defend your interests Tebay tragedy that killed four RMT members.. “As it stands the law is a mess and the prospect of calling killer bosses to account is next to zero,” Bob said. He pointed out that only recently charges over the Hatfield disaster were dropped: Four years on and the public are no nearer to seeing anyone held to account”. “What a shambles, and what an insult to the memory of those who died,” Bob said. Time for a debate on the EU constitution Bob Crow also won cheers from delegates when he questioned why people were afraid of a debate on the proposed EU constitution. RMT had tabled a motion detailing concerns that the constitution would destroy democracy, privatise services, militarise the bloc and attack civil liberties. The motion did not propose a yes or no on the constitution but called for more information to be circulated. This attracted support from communications union CWU, public sector union UNISON and a number of other unions. This prompted a general council statement welcoming a referendum and a commitment to investigate the threat to “national democratic rights and public services” but called on RMT to remit its motion. However, Bob said that ratification of the constitution would change the way we are governed and it needed to be discussed. “The constitution would institutionalise privatisation and neo-liberal policies that have wrecked UK industries and turned the EU into one of the world’s low growth regions,” he said to cheers. “The bottom line is that any government that hands over power to this degree is effectively no longer a government. “If you are not going to have an economic policy, if you are not going to have a policy for government in the long term, if you are not going to have a policy for the army, you are not a government any more. You can’t control your own destiny,” he said. RMT general secretary Bob Crow addressed delegates at the TUC congress held in Brighton last month