RMT AT TUC

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: october 2011 :: RMTnews 8 TUC Congress delegates in London last month backed calls to oppose the controversial McNulty report which threatens to increase fragmentation, privatisation and a swathe of job losses on the railways. RMT led the way in a number of key debates and secured the backing from the wider movement for its industrial, political and campaigning priorities. RMT general secretary Bob Crow condemned the so-called ‘value for money’ report written by Sir Roy McNulty, “commissioned by Labour and to be carried out by the Tories”. "Over 110 years ago there were 120 railway companies then after the war we had four and they were nationalised - now we have 103 railway companies. "Suddenly this bloke McNulty comes along and argues for more fragmentation. “Well I suppose when you pay someone £200,000 a year you are going to come up with the answer you want," said Bob, who was re-elected to the TUC General Council with an increased majority. Bob also recalled that Labour leader Ed Miliband had said that East Coast Mainline was running well in the public sector. TSSA general secretary Gerry Doherty agreed and said that the McNulty report was a Beeching report Mark 2 and would lead to less people using trains. "To Mr Miliband I am telling you now bring the railways back into public ownership, it's cheaper and the right thing to do,” he said. RMT delegate Mick Tosh, from Portsmouth, also managed to get in on the Labour leader Question and Answer session with a direct challenge to support the public ownership of the railways. A waffling, political-speak answer about looking at all potential forms of ownership hardly inspired confidence that Ed Milliband is going to seize this sure-fire vote winner with both hands. RMT won backing for an emergency motion slamming the government’s betrayal of Bombardier workers in Derby by awarding the Thameslink train- building contract to the German company Siemens instead. Midlands RMT regional organiser Ken Usher travelled down to London with a group representing the Derby workforce and they received a rapturous response and standing ovation as they entered the hall. At a fringe meeting organised jointly with the other Bombardier unions, Darren Barber, RMT rep and vice chair of the works committee made an impassioned plea - thanking the trade movement for the support and calling for continuing and renewed solidarity now that the betrayal over the Thameslink fleet was in the public eye. RMT president Alex Gordon moved opposition to the social dumping provisions in the proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the EU and India. Alex told delegates that the secretive Mode 4 would hand transnational corporations the right to import cheap labour from India, displacing local workers, and give western capital access to Indian banking, financial and pharmaceutical markets (see page 25). Under Mode 4, Indian companies operating in Delhi and London could move low- paid workers from India to Britain, undercutting workers domestically. "Transnational companies will be able to move workers across national borders and nation states will limit their own constitutional authority over these corporations. "Workers' rights will be lost forever to corporate power," Alex said. GMB delegate Fern McCaffrey seconded the motion criticising the record of free trade agreements in general. "They have had a negative effect on the ability of nation- states to foster national and local economic development and to promote and protect human rights," she said. Congress delegates agreed that all trade unionists should be made aware of what is being stitched up in the murky corridors of the World Trade Organisation and the EU in the name of free trade. In a major composite on economic policy an RMT amendment calling for the renationalisation of transport and the utilities was backed by delegates. RMT delegates contributed to a debate on trade-union rights, exposing the renewed attacks by big business and leading figures in the Tory party on the right to strike. Repeated efforts to tamper with trade union RMT AT TUC Union wins support to fight the McNulty report and EU social dumping, and in defence of workers’ rights and train manufacturing in Britain