PROTEST ON MARCH 28 AGAINST EU TRANSPORT DIKTATS

Transport trade unions gathered in London in January 2011 to discuss the need for transport workers to build resistance to European Union policies, which promote privatisation, fragmentation, social dumping, outsourcing and attacks on collective employment conditions and workers’ rights. Continuing EU attacks on publicly owned networks and transport workers confirm this analysis and include: 1. On March 28 the European Commission published its Transport White Paper Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area demanding ‘market opening’ in all areas of transport; 2. On November 14 the European parliament rubberstamped a ‘recast’ of its first rail liberalisation package, imposing the EU’s rail privatisation model – fragmentation, separation, competition – establishing a ‘single European railway area’ as a market for monopoly finance capital and to attack rail workers’ national collective agreements and social rights; 3. Continuing catastrophic decline in maritime employment conditions and lifeline ferry services as a result of EU liberalisation of ‘cabotage’, EU treaties governing ‘freedom of establishment’ and continuing disastrous consequences from ‘flags of convenience’; 4. Enforced privatisation of urban transport networks under the EU regulation (2007) on public service obligations in local public transport by road and rail; 5. Abandonment of ‘socialised transport’ in favour of services run in the interests of corporate monopoly capital, where profit becomes the only criterion; 6. More expensive, less efficient public transport for citizens and users, where greed, the domination of financial interests and profit are allowed to destroy jobs, public transport services and communities. Since our last meeting the intensifying political and economic crisis in the EU has not stemmed the drive towards privatisation of transport networks, or the flow of EU legislation demanding it. In fact privatisation of transport and other national assets is a central demand of the International Monetary Fund/EU/European Central Bank troika to impose austerity and a mass privatisation programme on Greece and Portugal and to transfer assets to British, French and German banks. As the crisis of European banks and the ‘Euro’ intensifies, other workers will suffer similar attacks on their fundamental democratic rights. European Court of Justice decisions target trade-union rights and freedoms and promote the rights of capital and business in the EU, while austerity measures of national governments and EU institutions target the social gains of previous generations. Unless the EU and the corporate power that stands behind it are challenged by trade unions fighting for nationalised, publicly accountable public services, attacks on workers through privatisation and social dumping will continue and be assisted by recent judgments in the European Court of Justice. The unions therefore called for a united demonstration in Brussels on the first anniversary of the publication of European Commission Transport White Paper on Wednesday, March 28, 2012 and Europe-wide national action by trade unions representing transport workers, during the week March 26-31, 2012 to: - Defend their critical national infrastructure as a key component of national sovereignty and democracy. · Target protests against EU institutions (European Commission offices, EU regulatory agencies, EU financial and political institutions, etc), which facilitate and enforce privatisation and liberalisation of rail, light rail, bus and ferry services (e.g. SeaFrance). · Coordinate solidarity protests with transport workers and their trade unions where they are engaged in a struggles to oppose the effects of EU social dumping and call for defence of workers’ and trade union rights and national collective bargaining. · Demand that national transport infrastructure and services are owned, managed and maintained by sovereign national bodies accountable to citizens of those states. Lisbon, November 2011 R MT is one of the trade unions supporting a united protest by transport workers’ unions in Brussels on the first anniversary of the publication of European Commission Transport White Paper, Wednesday, 28 March, 2012. The protest call was made at the congress of the Federation of Portuguese Transport and Communications Unions (FECTRANS) in Lisbon two days after workers brought Portugal to a standstill with air traffic controllers, metro, bus and rail workers, port and dock workers road hauliers and ferry workers, teachers and hospital staff joining a general strike against EU austerity policies. FECTRANS delegates debated the current attacks on democracy and employment rights in Portugal where new anti-union laws were introduced by the right-wing government last year, while Portugal’s economy has now been placed under control of the so-called “troika” (the EU, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund) as the price for the EU ‘bailout’. One speaker told delegates: “Here in Portugal we are occupied by a foreign troika represented by the EU, ECB and IMF and a domestic troika represented by the three main political parties who all agree to implement their policies”. PROTEST: Trade unionists march with flags and banners during the 24-hour general strike in November. People gathered in the streets of the capital during a nationwide 24-hour general strike to protest against harsh EU austerity measures the government has been implementing in the country. PROTEST ON MARCH 28 AGAINST EU TRANSPORT DIKTATS RMT president Alex Gordon reports from a conference of transport trade unions in Portugal which vowed to protest in Brussels on March 28 2012 against the EU’s privatisation drive NATIONALISATION NOT PRIVATISATION RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: january 2012 :: RMTnews 18 Conference statement