ROYAL FLEET AUXILIARY MEMBERS STRIKE FOR DECENT PENSIONS

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: may/june 2012 :: RMTnews 7 R MT has called on the SNP administration in Scotland to call off planned sell-off of the Northern Isles Ferries service to private outfit SERCO as it emerged that the plan is now bound up in a legal challenge from another prospective bidder. SNP Ministers attempted to smuggle out the news that the lifeline Northlink routes were to be sold off to SERCO in a deal worth almost £250 million at teatime on the Friday after the local elections when all eyes were on the count in areas like Glasgow. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that the whole botched privatisation plan had descended into chaos with one private bidder mounting a legal challenge to another. “This is no way to run essential, lifeline ferry operations that are a fundamental public service. “The SNP administration got this decision badly wrong and this legal challenge gives them a chance to stop digging the hole, drag themselves out and reverse this unwanted and unnecessary privatisation of ferry services,” he said. RMT is seeking urgent meetings and assurances in terms of jobs and working conditions and the fight to defend Scottish ferry services from cuts and privatisation goes on. R MT members on the Royal Fleet Auxiliary took 24-hour strike action this month alongside other public sector workers. Following the national day of action observed by RFA members and many other public sector workers last year, further talks have taken place with the government in the dispute over radical pension cuts. There has been no further progress and the unacceptable proposals by the Con Dem government to make all public sector workers pay more and work longer for a reduced pension are still in place. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that RMT members on the RFA, the service that supplies the Royal Navy fleet around the world in times of both war and peace, had stood shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of thousands of other public service workers. “We sent the clearest message to the government that we will defend our pensions to the hilt and the demand that our members should work longer, pay more and get less will be thrown back in the faces of this government of millionaire public schoolboys. “The hammering the Con Dems took in the polls in May should serve as a wake-up call from working men and women that we will not roll over and take the hit. “It’s the bankers and the bosses who have gambled with our country’s future and the men and women who provide the lifeline services to the Royal Navy fleet should not have to tolerate a worse pension and be forced to work longer to make up for their mistakes,” he said. ROYAL FLEET AUXILIARY MEMBERS STRIKE FOR DECENT PENSIONS RMT DEMANDS HALT TO SCOTTISH FERRIES SELL OFF