PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

may 2005 :: RMTnews 25 UST SAY TITUTION EU CONSTITUTION AT A GLANCE THE POWER TO PRIVATISE Article III-147 gives the EU powers to enforce privatisation in any area of economic activity: “A European framework law shall establish the measures in order to achieve the liberalisation of a specific service.” A THREAT TO PUBLIC SERVICES Article I-15 gives the EU new powers to 'co-ordinate' economic, employment and social policies. Article III-210 lists the almost unlimited areas of social policy where the EU will have the right to 'support and complement' the activities of member states. UNELECTED IN CHARGE Article 1-26 confirms the sole right of the unelected European Commission to draw up new laws and Article 111-188 orders member states “not to seek to influence the….European Central Bank”, the unelected body that decides economic policy for the eurozone. ANTI-UNION LAWS TO REMAIN Article II-88 states that workers have rights to collective bargaining and to take strike action only "in accordance with national laws and practices". THREAT TO CIVIL LIBERTIES Article II-112 allows "limitations" of basic human rights "if they are necessary and genuinely meet objectives of general interest recognised by the Union". Article II-114 forbids any political campaigning to reverse any aspects of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. MILITARISATION Article I-16 states: "Member states shall actively and unreservedly support the Union's common foreign and security policy in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity". BIG BROTHER Article III-276 gives the EU the right to extend the “structure, operation, field of action and tasks” of its police force, whose agents, like other EU officials, enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution. DEATH PENALTY Article 1-62 says no-one shall be condemned to the death penalty. However, the article “explanations” allows the death penalty “in respect of acts committed in time of war or of imminent threat of war”. AT TIME of writing, the Rail Against Privatisation campaign is in full swing. On behalf of the union, I would like to expresses thanks and appreciation to those members who volunteered to take the long journey from Scotland to London and the many others who turned out to support them at meetings along the way. Thanks should also go to Geoff Revell and Larry Cotton for all the hard work they put in organising this huge task. Some have asked why did RMT carry out such a campaign when it is clear that rail privatisation has been a failure. Well, RAP has exposed just how disastrous this experiment has been and how much the travelling public has been ripped-off. For instance, before privatisation in 1994 over 90 per cent of trains on the publicly-owned railway ran to time. By comparison, in the year to 31 December 2004, the privatised network could only deliver just over 80 per cent of services on time. Moreover, the £4.5 billion in public subsidy now paid to the railway is more than three times the public subsidy paid to British Rail. A recent report by the Independent think tank Catalyst calculated that £800 million a year is taken out of the industry as returns to private lenders and investors – a total leakage of more than £6 billion since 1996. Last year’s Labour Party conference voted overwhelmingly to return the railways to the public, an aspiration contained within the first Blair government manifesto in 1997. Two consecutive Labour governments have ignored these realities and the three major parties made no serious mention of the wider issues on transport. Yet transport is the lifeblood of the nation and is too vital to be ignored. So RMT had to take to the streets to get the message out that re-nationalisation makes political, economic and moral sense. According to the think-tank Catalyst the small transitional costs of taking the railways back into public ownership would subsequently reap huge savings for the taxpayer. Savings would be accrued from reduced bureaucracy and an end to leakages to private providers of finance. On a conservative estimate overall immediate cash savings of taking Network Rail, TOC’s and Roscos in public ownership would be £500 million a year. In addition, taking renewals back in house would save £400 million per annum. So public ownership would deliver total savings of £900 million a year, £4.5 billion over the lifetime of a Labour government. Private sector investment would also not be threatened, as some politicians have claimed, as all private sector investment is ultimately paid from by taxpayers and farepayers. Catalyst warn “without direct public control over costs, money spent in support of the rail industry will prove unsustainable, creating pressure to shift the burden to passengers through fare rises and cuts to services”. Indeed, the new Railways Act will make it easier to reduce the size of the network raising concerns over line closures, service reductions and job losses. The SRA’s Community Rail Development Strategy could also result in further cuts to our rural and branch lines. Closing lines and services will further prevent the government from reaching its domestic emissions targets. In addition, the Royal Academy of Engineering has recently estimated road congestion costs the UK £15 billion a year. Therefore, the campaign to defend and expand our transport network must continue. This is part of the wider campaign for taxpayers’ hard- earned money to be spent on public services, including hospitals, education and pensions and not on illegal wars in Iraq. PRESIDENT’S COLUMN