DEFEND LONDON MIDLAND TICKET OFFICES

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: june 2011 :: RMTnews 4 L abour MP Jim Cunningham has tabled Early Day Motion 1874 calling for the Department for Transport to defend jobs and services at London Midland trains and reject its plans to cut opening times of ticket offices and shut nine completely. In the EDM the MP for Coventry South welcomes the decision by the Passenger Focus, after receiving an unprecedented 18,000 complaints, to register an objection to these proposed cuts with the Department for Transport. It calls on the Department to defend jobs and services by upholding the Passenger Focus objection to the reductions in ticket office opening times and opposes any move prompted by the McNulty value for money review to weaken the public consultation provisions of the Ticketing and Settlement Agreement (TSA). Under the terms of the TSA, London Midland had to consult the public on the major changes it proposed to make to ticket office opening times. The three week consultation period provided RMT, other rail unions, local councillors and the travelling public adequate time to lodge objections against the cuts package. The recently published McNulty review has given the green light to train operators across the network to embark on a whole scale closure of ticket offices and recommends that the TSA is ‘overhauled’. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that the union completely rejected McNulty’s cuts package and will fight to defend ticket office jobs and services. “The overwhelming view of passengers, local councillors and members of the public in the London Midland franchise area clearly backs properly staffed ticket offices and endorses RMT’s view that trained railway staff, not TVMs, are best placed to offer the best advice to rail users about their ticketing and travel options,” he said. DEFEND LONDON MIDLAND TICKET OFFICES HANDS OFF CAL MAC NO PRIVATISATION: RMT members addressed a meeting in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis recently as part of the on-going union and community campaign to stave off the threat from the Scottish government Ferries Review which is proposing to tender individual routes opening the door for new operators to take over individual routes currently run by the publicly owned Caledonian Macbrayne. There is also concerted pressure from the European Union for wholesale privatisation. RMT general secretary Bob Crow told the meeting that the threat of cuts and privatisation to Scotland’s lifeline ferry services remained very real. “The current climate of austerity measures has turned up the volume on the warning sirens in the communities where we are organising resistance,” he said. Picture left to right: STUC Assistant General Secretary Steven Boyd, RMT national secretary Steve Todd, RMT president Alex Gordon ), RMT Western Isles and Clyde Port Committee George Lonie, Bob Crow and RMT Scottish Regional Organiser Mick Hogg.