INTERNATIONAL NEWS

RMT helpline 0800 3763706 :: january 2010 :: RMTnews 18 DEUTSCHE BAHN TO RUN SWEDISH REGIONAL NETWORK Germany’s Deutsche Bahn(DB) has won a 10-year contract to operate the rail system in the Sweden’s Ostergötland region. Other foreign companies, Veolia, Arriva and DSB First, already operate Swedish networks. Deutsche Bahn operates Chiltern Railways in the UK through purchase of the company in 2008 and now runs the UK freight monopoly EWS as DB Schenker. DB CEO Rüdiger Grube, who expected the group would be privatised by this or next year (2011), now accepts that the government-backed sell-off won’t take place before 2013 because of the dire financial situation. FRENCH RAIL UNIONS DEMONSTRATE FOR THEIR FUTURE Over 15,000 rail workers in December demonstrated outside the headquarters of French Railways(SNCF)to oppose restructuring plans. CGT general secretary Didier Le Reste said the moves would shift the SNCF from being a successful publicly-owned group whose mission is to satisfy the needs of the travelling public to a company aimed at making a profit that could later be partially or totally privatised. Under European Union rules all passenger rail routes must be ‘liberalised’ and open to full competition by 2010. The three rail unions involved in the protest, CGT, UNSA and CFDT, also slammed SNCF’s rail freight plan that would bring 1.5 million more lorries onto the roads. The unions oppose the 2010 transport budget as it would lead to thousands of job losses and a fall in the quality of service. Didier Le Reste also said that the 2009 0.3 per cent pay rise in 2009 was “unacceptable”. LD LINES CHOOSES RED ENSIGN France’s LD Lines has decided that the 1,300-passenger, 90 lorry-capacity Norman Leader, that joins LD Lines' fleet in June, will fly the Red Ensign. The French operator continues to extend its English Channel reach with a new Portsmouth-Le Havre freight service alongside its Cote d'Albatre passenger/freight operation. The Birka Exporter Ro-Ro has been chartered in from Finland to replace the operator’s Norman Spirit that has been redeployed to the Boulogne-Dover link. SEAFRANCE DISPUTE GOES TO MEDIATOR The CFDT ratings union at French Dover – Calais operator SeaFrance has still not signed a draft agreement on a plan to reduce jobs but with no forced redundancies despite reaching an agreed government appointed mediator. The French Rail (SNCF) subsidiary’s original restructuring plan involved up to 500 fewer jobs in SeaFrance’s 1,580 workforce that includes 1,300 seafarers. Management’s most recent proposal guarantees 413 jobs through transfers to other SNCF subsidiaries. BILLIONAIRE BUFFETT BUYS UP US RAILWAYS US billionaire Warren Buffett is to invest a massive $44 billion to buy outright the Burlington National Santa Fe rail freight company (BNSF). His company, Berkshire Hathaway, already owns 22.6 per cent of BNSF and also has a stake in Union Pacific rail group, the operator’s main rival. BNSF manages 51,200km of freight track in 28 US states and two Canadian provinces and employs 40,000 people. California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has requested US government aid to help build a bullet train system between San Francisco and San Diego. “We are travelling on our trains at the same speed as 100 years ago, that is inexcusable and America must catch up,” he said. 43-YEAR-OLD FINNISH FERRY HELD AT BREST The Onyx, a 43-year-old Finnish owned ferry was towed into port following an engine failure off Brest. Its Indian crew have threatened not to work until two months back pay has been handed over. The Onyx is suspected of being sold to a Third World country. While its official papers show it was en route for break- up in Turkey, the vessels owner told the Finnish Maritime authorities it will sail again after two years idle in the port of Vasaa. NEW SOUTH AFRICA NETWORK LATE FOR WORLD CUP Completion of the Gautrain, South Africa’s fast regional network between Johannesburg and Pretoria, will not be completed before the June 2010 World Football Cup. The government has turned down the offer of the consortium building the network to speed up construction for an extra £2 billion. ESTONIA FERRY DISASTER TRIAL OPENS IN FRANCE The memory of 859 lives lost in the 1994 sinking of the Estonia and Cyprus-flagged Estonia cruise ferry in the Baltic Sea is at last in the public’s eye following the Paris court of appeal’s judgement that the case can be heard in France. The case was brought in a civil action lodged in 1996 by 1,200 relations of Swedish and Estonian victims against France’s Bureau Veritas classification society and the German shipyard Meyer Werft. The French court announced its decision after the Swedish authorities declined to take up the case. The ferry was carrying 989 passengers and crew of which about 130 survived. One of the victims was British. The hearing is expected to last until 2012. RUSSIA JOINS HIGH-SPEED TRAIN CLUB Russia is poised to join the high-speed club with trains designed by Siemens of Germany and adapted to the country’s severe winters. The trains will travel the 641km between Moscow and Saint Petersburg in three hours 45 minutes - trimming 45 minutes from the present fastest train service - compared to five hours by air including travel to and from the airport. INTERNATIONAL NEWS