THE RAIL INDUSTRY DURING THE RECESSION

RMT helpline 0800 3763706 :: june 2009 :: RMTnews 8 M embers of RMT’s parliamentary group led the way in an adjournment debate in the House of Commons on June 3. John McDonnell MP introduced the motion: “The rail industry during the recession.” Opening the discussion John McDonnell said that he sought the debate because the economic recession is hitting the rail industry hard. “The falling demand in the economy is resulting in a falling demand for rail services, both passenger and freight. The drying up of revenue resources or income is leading to cuts in jobs and services and the curtailment of some potential investment. “There is a concern among many in the industry that unless the crisis is addressed, we could be going into a spiral of decline for the long term,” John told the assembled MPs. “There is no better example than London Underground of the recession combined with the privatisation proposals of past years producing a toxic cocktail of policy failures. “The government’s public-private partnership on the underground will go down as a memorial to the prime minister’s bloody-minded refusal to listen to expert warnings about the privatisation mechanism that has been used. It is a monument to dogmatic incompetence,” he added. Other RMT group members argued that the private sector can never deliver a railway in the interests of the public and a green economy. They pointed out that: * Cutting 7,000 jobs will impact on the quality of service and safety. * Cutting maintenance work will lead to more train delays * Cutting jobs means losing a skills base making achieving future large infrastructure projects much more difficult * Sky-high fares price people off trains John Barrett MP urged the government to take on board that a time of recession rail investment should be the green stimulus for the economy, which the government has proclaimed it is looking for. Rail is the low- carbon alternative to cars and lorries which should be promoted to meet climate change commitments, he said. “We have an opportunity to move forward to high-speed rail, as other countries have. We need to make sure not only that high-speed rail is good for the environment, but that it stimulates the economy throughout the land and provides the shovel-ready jobs that have been mentioned. We could get the construction, civil engineering and railway industries working together to produce jobs immediately and to stimulate the economy,” John Barrett added. Kelvin Hopkins MP argued that the railways are important to Britain because they are the future mode of transport, especially in an era of energy difficulties and diminishing oil. He said that privatisation was a disaster that has only benefited profiteers. “We are now seeing the beginning of the end of the mad, Dr. Strangelove experiment called railway privatisation. It has cost vast sums of money, does not work for passengers or taxpayers and was always utterly misguided. It has simply put vast sums of money into private pockets to very little benefit. The first stage in that decline was the collapse of Railtrack, which I understand had a neon sign in the foyer of its building showing its share price: that is how much it cared about railway safety and comfort and the future of passengers. Network Rail took over from Railtrack and effectively brought the network into public ownership, but its behaviour and methods continued many of the bad private sector practices.” Kelvin Hopkins said. RMT general secretary Bob Crow welcomed the fact that the union’s parliamentary group had raised the issues. “While the train operators are jacking up fares by as much as 11 per cent, thousands of rail workers’ jobs are on the line and up to a third of this year’s essential renewals programme is being deferred. The companies are protecting their profits while those who run the services and who keep the tracks safe face the prospect of being dumped on the dole queue,” Bob Crow said. THE RAIL INDUSTRY DURING THE RECESSION RMT parliamentary group leads debate “There is no better example than London Underground of the recession combined with the privatisation proposals of past years producing a toxic cocktail of policy failures” John McDonnell MP