WHY RMT IS MARCHING!

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: march 2012 :: RMTnews 22 Transport unions across Europe are demanding an end to European Union transport ‘liberalisation’ that force member states to introduce ‘market competition’ to outsource and privatise transport networks across ferry, bus and rail networks, attacking the fundamental concept of 'socialised' public transport. Privatisation of transport infrastructure and services along with other key national assets is a core demand of the IMF/EU/ECB troika now imposing austerity and mass privatisation on Greece and Portugal. The transfer of ownership and control of transport to Europe’s biggest private banks and corporate monopolies is an attack on national democracy and an anti-democratic veto by finance capital over the sovereign rights of the people. EU competition rules to enforce rapid ‘liberalisation’ of ‘cabotage’ in ferries and deep sea shipping since 1986, have led to massive attacks on seafarers' jobs, pay and conditions of employment through widespread social dumping. An increasing number of ships operate around European coasts under ‘flags of convenience’, and are employing low-cost labour from Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Ukraine, the Philippines and beyond with no national protection of employment rights. EU diktats have created a damaging split between train services and maintaining safe railway infrastructure in the name of "opening up to the market". British Rail was privatised over 15 years ago by a Conservative government, which implemented EU Rail Directive 91/440/EEC, introducing an artificial ‘vertical split’ between control of train services and rail infrastructure to create an ‘internal market’ in railways, which are natural monopolies that function best under seamless vertical integration and public ownership. The European Commission’s 2011 ‘Transport White Paper’ imposes EU rail liberalisation, first implemented in Britain with disastrous results, as "a single European railway area" now to be repeated across Europe in defiance of the wishes of the public. Private rail companies and shareholders have extracted billions of pounds from railway privatisation in Britain, while public subsidy of private rail firms is today five times greater than when Britain’s railways were nationalised. EU rail privatisation, which no-one voted for and no-one wants except big business interests, is destroying rail networks across Europe. The dysfunctional ‘vertical split’ between train services and rail infrastructure is a barrier to public investment in social rail services. Liberalisation of rail freight has led to the loss of hundreds of goods yards and thousands of jobs, and the shift of cargo to road transport to make freight services profitable, at a cost to safety, the environment and society. Liberalisation of international passenger rail services led to attempts to cut safety standards in train services using the Channel tunnel. The latest ‘recast’ of the European 1st rail liberalisation package will mean rail workers’ jobs are ‘outsourced’ to private sub- contracting agencies. Now the Commission is preparing a 4th rail package to WHY RMT IS MARCHING! Transport workers from across Europe are marching in Brussels this month on the first anniversary of the European Commission's Transport White Paper, which orders states to surrender transport networks to corporate interests