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RMTnews :: july/august 2005 4 Open six days a week Mon to Fri - 8am until 6pm, Sat - 9am to 4pm e-mail: info@rmt.org.uk Legal helpline: 0800 587 7516 Seven days a week Members Helpline Freephone 0800 376 3706 T he European Commission has proposed that local transport companies that enjoy a monopoly in their home market will be banned from obtaining business elsewhere. Brussels hopes the plan will put pressure on cities, such as Paris, which have so far refused to privatise public transport systems. In the French capital, RATP, which runs the Métro and bus services, has successfully bid for contracts in other French cities. The group also has a stake in a company that operates bus services in London. The proposals are a brainchild of Jacques Barrot, the French EU transport commissioner, former Paris mayor tainted by corruption charges and the main architect of the proposed privatisation of lifeline ferry services in Scotland. "You cannot have a monopoly at home and at the same time try to sell your products in other markets,” he said. His proposals state than any public monopoly operator may "not take part in competitive tenders organised outside the territory of the competent authority". RATP president Anne Marie Idrac warned that moves to end the group's monopoly would undermine the benefits of an integrated public network and pledged that the group would defend the present regime. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said it was further evidence that the creation a single market within the EU was all about handing public transport networks to private operators at the expense of the travelling public. “The privateers want to cherrypick profitable services and abandon the rest, creating the conditions for the transport chaos that currently exists in Britain,” he said. Centra busworkers strike after pay talks fail A round 100 RMT busworkers at Centra buses in south London took strike action for 24 hours last month in a dispute over pay and conditions. The busworkers have already taken action, although a strike scheduled for May was suspended to allow talks to take place. Police were out in force to allow strikebreakers to take out buses, and one strikebreaker was allowed to smoke while driving. “Our claim is for a basic £500 weekly wage, equal contracts with equal pay for all employees, no zero-hours contracts, adequate annual leave, sick-pay from day one of employment and full rostered earnings for victims of assaults at work,” RMT regional organiser Bobby Law said. “Today’s action is as solid as the first strike last month and shows how frustrated our members are that the company has failed to negotiate seriously with us. “If Centra put as much effort into negotiating as they have put into intimidating our members with night-club bouncers and organising a heavy police presence on the picket line, this dispute could be settled easily,” Bobby said. R MT groundstaff at EWS’s Wolverhampton Steel Terminal launched six consecutive days of strike action recently against the imposition of rosters and the withdrawal of vacant posts without consultation or agreement. The company has imposed new rosters that reduce members’ hours and earnings and have cut five posts at the depot without a word of consultation or negotiation. The five jobs were not included in a list of potential redundancies put forward recently by the company at national level. RMT general secretary Bob Crow made quite clear that the new rosters were unacceptable, but the company has imposed them anyway. “It is disgraceful that that the company should see fit to discuss with haulage contractors when our members should take their meal breaks without consulting the people affected. “EWS have brought this action upon themselves by ignoring their own agreements,” Bob said. If the company wants to settle this dispute it should now withdraw both the new rosters and the job cuts and talk seriously to their workforce. BRUSSELS ATTACKS PUBLIC SERVICES EWS WOLVERHAMPTON GROUNDSTAFF TAKE ACTION