PRESIDENTS COLUMN

december 2005 :: RMTnews Transport privatisation promised much but has delivered very little. The latest “radical shake-up “ of rail services in the Midlands will yet again cause uncertainty and insecurity to many railway workers who are no doubt asking what on Earth is going on? After the South Eastern Trains debacle, caused by privatisation when the franchise had to be removed from rail privateer Connex, the government intends to put the lot out to tender again to recreate the same mess. And now more “stop-go” changes to no less than eleven train companies up for refranchising over the next year. What does this do for the morale of the workforce? What affect will there be on their jobs, contracts of employment, pensions and conditions? RMT’s role is to protect members from this race for profit caused by privatisation. Those of us around in the lead-up to privatisation ten years ago will remember that our railway network was split up into palatable bits for sale. The passenger network was split for example into Intercity, Regional Railways, London and South East as was the freight side. If one examines the new Midland franchises in particular where “mainline Intercity” will again be mixed with regional and rural lines – the question arises do they have a clue what they are doing? The answer must be they don’t have a clue and the sooner that our railways become a national asset again the better. I have in the past in this column mentioned the adverse affects of globalisation and “liberalisation” on working people and how important it is for them to be protected by their trade unions. I see examples of these damaging effects increasingly often. Oksana Karamjana came from Latvia on a three months contract to work for Irish Ferries earlier this year for less than £2.50 an hour for twelve hours a day, seven days a week. She stayed on the boat for the duration of the contract with no days off. She complained that she felt like a robot and became physically and mentally exhausted and decided to leave. She also alerted the International Transport Workers Federation, which represents transport workers of her plight, but Irish Ferries declined to even allow an Inspector on board. Irish Ferries plans to introduce ‘social dumping’. Social dumping means sacking local labour and employing foreign nationals at massively lower rates in order to increase profits for shareholders and wages for company directors. This exploitation of foreign nationals has rightly caused a major dispute in Ireland, where hundreds of Irish seafarers have been sacked and replaced by sweated east European labour. I and many other RMT members took part in a large march and demonstration in Dublin on November 9 calling on the government to put a stop to this exploitation. Similar problems exist on UK shipping and RMT and other European trade unions are uniting to protect all transport workers from this “race to the bottom”. Finally, I’d like to wish all members a very happy Christmas. Tony Donaghey President’s column Stopping the race to the bottom DE G LINE PROTEST: Irish seafarers defending jobs Colombian trade unionists remains perilous, the ongoing support that they are receiving from the British trade union movement is slowly but surely improving this horrendous situation. Carlos Rodriguez, General Secretary of the Colombian TUC, described the importance of this support when he addressed the TUC congress in Brighton in September. “The number of trade unionists assassinated so far this year is less than last year. “This is due to the international support we are receiving and in particular from the British trade unions, which have been very active in fighting for our cause,” he told delegates If you or your branch would like to assist the work of JFC please consider sending a donation to us at: JFC, 9 Arkwright Road, London NW3 6AB. If you would like to participate in one of our delegations to Colombia or would like to invite a Colombian trade unionist to speak at your branch meeting, please contact the JFC office. Tel: 020 7794 3644, Email: info@justiceforcolombia.org For more information on JFC and the projects they support visit: www.justiceforcolombia.org