PRESIDENTS COLUMN

www.rmt.org.uk :: april 2006 :: RMTnews 25 It’s a strange world we workers live in as the nature of exploitation changes from time to time. Around forty-six years ago when I joined the railway, I was told by the boss – who in those days was the station master – “boy, if you keep your nose clean and do what your told by me you’ll have a good job on British Railways for life”. He also pointed out that the pay was not the best around but secure and there was a good pension scheme for your retirement. He also said that as a railway porter you can also get promotion. “So it’s all up to you the job and the “security” is here for you,” he said. So I believed him and took him at his word and became “a railwayman” and, whilst I enjoyed the job, I soon realised that I needed protection. So, first, I joined the union and shortly afterwards I joined the pension scheme. It was not long before the Beeching axe came down and much of our rural and some main line railways disappeared and many jobs were lost. I then worked on the Great Central Line, which was on the hit list; so I lost my job as a Guard under the last in, first out arrangements (so much for the boss’s promises). I was allocated another job at another depot but this would not have been so easy had I not been in the union. This taught me a good lesson in how vital it is for all workers to be in a union. My treatment also encouraged me to become active and my local representatives fought hard for their members and used to always say “if we stick together we can protect all”. That was in the 1960’s and here I am in 2006 still looking for the boss’s promises to be delivered. Of course, I know that these promises are only promises and I still need the protection of RMT more than ever. Now I hear bosses claim that a ‘job for life’ is a thing of the past and workers should not be “protectionist” and must move jobs when they are no longer required. Now they claim unions do not fit the “modern” image and refer the railway as a business. Passengers are now customers as if that makes them feel better when the privatised trains run late. That great friend of the road lobby, Beeching is dead and gone but the most recent Transport Act seems intent on bringing him back to raise his axe on rail services once more. Then, there are the various EU rail packages and directives to contend with, which enforce the privatisation and fragmentation of transport sectors across Europe. Our “secure” pensions are no longer so, due to the long ‘pension fund holidays’ taken by employers who took the opportunity to halt paying into the scheme in order to line their own pockets with taxpayers money. Due to the changes made on pension funding, coupled with a downturn” in the stock market, our pension contributions are going through the roof, often making them too expensive for many. This government is now telling us that security in old age is our own problem, and we need to save through expensive schemes that make fortunes for capitalists in the process. It is imperative that we have a unified fight with the other rail unions to defend the right to a decent pension scheme. All in all, I am glad that we have the protective arm of our union and I urge all transport workers to join in and support the campaigns that we are engaged in now and in the future. Tony Donaghey President’s column The changing face of exploitation IRISH PROTEST AGAINST PRIVATISATION SIPTU branch officials at the Siptu protest outside Leinster House, Dublin last month to protest against the sale of national airline Aer Lingus. . GREEK PROTESTS Delivery personnel and couriers protest in Athens last month against planned anti-union laws by Greece's right wing government. A 24-hour nationwide strike disrupted transport and closed banks, schools and hospitals. SOUTH AFRICAN TRANSPORT WORKERS DEMONSTRATE Transnet workers marched to parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, last month as part of a national strike by the South Africa Transport and Allied Workers Union, United Transport and Allied Trade Workers Union and South Africa Railway and Harbour Workers Union. The countrywide strike was launched after negotiations with Transnet on the restructuring of the giant parastatal failed.