PRESIDENTS COLUMN

www.rmt.org.uk :: october 2006 :: RMTnews Last month the TUC was the latest organisation to back the growing campaign to keep the East London Line’s operations in the public sector. This is following Transport for London’s decision that the extended line should be part of a ‘concession’ to one of four private-sector bidders from 2010. MPs, councillors, union branches and trades councils are also taking up the campaign, alongside TSSA and RMT. The response of TfL has been to attempt to muddy the waters in what is really a straightforward issue of private-sector versus public-sector services. It is no good the mayor’s office claiming that this process is not privatisation but something else. It plans to hand the concession over to the private sector and staff will be working for a private train operating company – not London Underground. As they say: if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it probably is a duck – and this one’s webbed footprints are unmistakable to any public- service worker. TfL asserts that the North London Railway is to be integrated into the extended East London Line, but the reality is that the ELL is to be taken out of London Underground’s public- sector operations and bundled into the private sector alongside the NLR as part of a private- sector ‘concession’. Regardless of any regulation of fares, service patterns, staffing levels and so on, it will be operated by the private sector and it is completely untrue to say, as TfL has, that services will be “delivered” by TfL. Moreover, the North London Railway remains an overcrowded nightmare after a decade in the hands of National Express. NatEx has snaffled £373 million in subsidies for its Silverlink franchise since 1996, and made £64 million in profits from its rail operations last year, nearly double what it made in 2003. It is also untrue that the operation of the extended ELL was always envisaged to be outside LUL, because LUL remained in the frame to operate it well into this year. We would be delighted to campaign alongside the mayor not only to keep the East London Line public, but also to get national rail services in London back into the public sector with proper democratic accountability. But sadly, rather than an open approach for a joint campaign, the process has been shrouded in secrecy, without even a whiff of consultation. Of course we welcome fresh investment, infrastructure and jobs but, as with countless PFI scams in the health service, the £2 million already being taken out of the Tube every week by the PPP contractors and the £8 billion sucked out of the national railways by the privateers, we do not want to see even more public money siphoned off by privateers who exist only to make profits. Keep the East London Line public! Tony Donaghey President’s column Keep the East London Line public ELECTION OF PRESIDENT SOUTHAMPTON NO 5 BRANCH NOMINATES RAY KNIGHT AND SEEKS SUPPORT FOR THIS PROVEN AND EXPERIENCED CANDIDATE ELECTION OF RELIEF REGIONAL ORGANISER (SOUTH) SOUTHAMPTON NO 5 BRANCH HAS NOMINATED PAUL COX AND SEEKS SUPPORT FOR THIS EXPERIENCED CANDIDATE PICCADILLY & DISTRICT WEST BRANCH NOMINATES PETER SKELLY FOR RELIEF REGIONAL ORGANISER - SOUTH PICCADILLY & DISTRICT WEST BRANCH NOMINATES JOHN LEACH FOR PRESIDENT TRANSPORT FOR LONDON BRANCH NOMINATES JOHN LEACH FOR PRESIDENT FINSBURY PARK BRANCH NOMINATES JOHN LEACH FOR PRESIDENT JOHN HAS INTEGRITY, RESOLVE AND PRINCIPLES AND DESERVES YOUR SUPPORT