TUBE DRIVER ARWYN THOMAS RE- INSTATED

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: july/august 2011 :: RMTnews 7 R MT has welcomed the decision by Liverpool councillors to listen to the union and drop their bid to privatise and take control of track and signalling from Network Rail and hand them over to Merseyrail. The move has been widely seen as a slap in the face to the Department of Transport and its controversial McNulty report which recommends, among other measures, the fragmentation of Network Rail and local ‘vertical’ integration. Merseytravel, which operates Merseyrail and has floated the idea of taking over Network Rail work locally, revealed that the bodies that run the company – the Integrated Travel Authority and the Passenger Travel Executive – are to “discontinue negotiations regarding localism given the current uncertainty and union opposition”. “Members don’t want Merseyside to be emblematic of the issues surrounding the implementation of Sir Roy McNulty’s report for reducing the cost of the UK’s railways,” a statement said. Merseytravel transport chief, Labour councillor Mark Dowd, led the U-turn after heading up a £1.5 million campaign for local veretical integration. “We are better under government control,” he said. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that common sense had prevailed in Merseytravel and it was the first defeat for the McNulty proposals to break up Network Rail “What the train operators are calling vertical integration is nothing of the sort and would only amount to more dangerous fragmentation of infrastructure. “The only safe and sensible way to achieve vertical integration is to re-unite all rail operations with infrastructure in a single publicly accountable structure,” he said. RMT and TSSA also held a joint demonstration outside Liverpool’s BT Conference Centre recently when Sir Roy McNulty addressed a major railway industry conference Protesters warned that McNulty’s Value for Money report would have terrible consequences for every rail worker and every rail user as he wanted to slash jobs, impose pay freezes and reduce safety. “The McNulty report is a recipe for disaster that will make staff, passengers and the environment pay for the mess rail privatisation created. “That’s why we are taking this protest right to his doorstep to make the case for public ownership - the solution to fragmentation and profiteering that Mr McNulty has totally ignored,” Bob said. Bob Crow also led a delegation to the Railtex Exhibition where McNulty was speaking. In the Q&A session, Bob pointed out that his report actually “persecutes” rail workers. “The suggestion that hard working rail workers will be denied a pay rise in line with inflation will never be accepted by RMT,” he said. He said that McNulty had failed to consult rail workers, their unions or the travelling public when he was putting together his report. McNulty admitted that RMT had done a “terrific job” for its members by negotiating pay rises that average 15 per cent higher than expected since privatisation and finished by saying that this had to stop. The union has produced a pamphlet on the McNulty Report, Paying for Privatisation available from Unity House. Email j.croy@rmt.org.uk STOPPING MCNULTY IN ITS TRACKS