RMT SLAMS GOVERNMENT PLANS TO AXE THOUSANDS OF TRANSPORT JOBS

RMT helpline 0800 3763706 :: june 2010 :: RMTnews 8 RMT has warned that key transport projects, including rural bus services, Crossrail, High Speed rail, electrification and the Tube upgrades, are all at risk of being scrapped, scaled back or kicked into the long grass by the new Tory/Lib Dem coalition government. The union warned that the national transport budget could be hacked back by up to 27 per cent. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that the government had sent out the clearest possible signal that transport was going to be right in the front line as the cuts assault on our services is unleashed. “During the election there were predictions that the transport budget could be slashed by 27 per cent - that now looks like an underestimate. “Thousands of jobs on the trains, buses, rail infrastructure and operations and the Tube are at risk while the waste, profits and subsidies of privatisation and the private train operators are ring fenced with even longer, gold-plated franchises,” he said. RMT also slammed plans to extend the on-going disaster of rail privatisation by offering private companies longer contracts, describing it as “a reward for failure and for ripping off the taxpayer to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds for an inferior service”. Buses in danger The Campaign for Better Transport also predicted 33 per cent fare increases over this parliament, fewer buses and a shortage of train capacity – all of which will push more people back into their cars and make a mockery of government claims to support a green transport policy. CBT also warned that “buses will become extinct outside the centres of cities and towns” under this Con/Dem government. Cutting the government’s bus service operator grant would result in seven per cent fewer services, a 6.5 per cent fares increase and 94 million fewer miles of supported services. CROSSRAIL Transport minister Theresa Villiers has refused to give a clear commitment to the Crossrail project in its entirety. Bob Crow warned that the continued threat to Crossrail was the thin end of a very thick wedge. "Any attack on rail would expose the hypocrisy of the new government on their green agenda as it would send more people onto the roads and into the skies. "The UK has been left in the slow lane on High Speed and electrification as the rest of Europe motors ahead and thousands of the workers that we need to maintain and upgrade rail infrastructure remain under threat. “Today is just the opening shots in a cuts and austerity war that could ram a gaping hole in the UK’s public services and jack up mass unemployment to Thatcherite levels and beyond. “It will require the maximum unity and resistance from the trade union movement to force back this attack on jobs, services and standards of living,” he said. NETWORK RAIL Spending cuts are also behind Network Rail’s slash-and-burn attack on jobs and conditions not their claims of overstaffing, new technology or outdated working practices. Bob Crow said that NR was trying to con the public into believing that a cost-led jobs cull was safe inspections and maintenance frequencies are already overstretched and that most safety recommendations made after the Grayrigg crash have not been implemented in full or in part. “NR knows as well as our skilled members that signalling systems need more maintenance, not less, that there is no widespread introduction of new technology, and that the conditions it wants to rip up have been negotiated in recent years. “The fact is that NR is under pressure to slash 21 per cent from its budget, wants to axe 1,500 front-line posts, lump maintenance functions onto over-worked signallers, and impose changes that will undermine rail safety and make another disaster inevitable,” he said. New Transport Secretary Philip Hammond has also said that a cost review of NR would centre on why Britain’s fully privatised railways are more expensive than others in Europe, sparking fears of cuts of up to 50 per cent. RMT SLAMS GOVERNMENT PLANS TO AXE THOUSANDS OF TRANSPORT JOBS RMT warns that the new government plans to take an axe to transport budgets, putting thousands of jobs on rail and the buses at risk