LEARNING SUCCESS IN SCOTLAND/LETTERS

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: january 2015 :: RMTnews 28 R MT shipping member Sean Lafferty has successfully completed a Certificate of Higher Education in Business Management this month through his trade union. Sean, a Chief Steward with Caledonian MacBrayne, was one of 15 learners from across the Highlands and Islands who embarked on the two-year qualification with the Open University in Scotland in 2012. Sean’s HNC-level qualification was sponsored by Scottish Union Learning. The course was aimed at helping workers in the Highlands and Islands gain qualifications to improve their job prospects. “My main ambition was to develop my knowledge and skills to help me become a better manager for myself, my team and my company and I feel that my initial goals have been realised. “I have one more rank to achieve within my department and will definitely be putting my name forward when the opportunity arises. “I would never have embarked on further education without this course and now I am a third of the way to completing my degree in Business Management, which I am committed to completing over the next four years,” said Sean. Sylvia O’Grady, Lifelong Learning Manager for Scottish Union Learning, said that the course exemplifies the role of trade unions in developing the workforce by providing opportunities for workers to enhance their skills and qualifications and consequently, improve their career prospects. Khadija Patel, Project Officer for The Open University, said that the Open University and Scottish Union Learning have a shared belief in lifelong learning and in supporting students to develop a strong sense of collective, as well as individual endeavour, to enable every student to achieve their potential. Dear editor, I see one of your correspondents is disappointed with RMT News' October front page (Scotrail GOING DUTCH) and thinks you shouldn't mention the fact that '75 per cent of rail franchises are now foreign owned'. The disappointing reality is that most UK train and freight operators are now foreign owned. This is testament to the role of European Union's rail liberalisation directives and procurement rules in undermining public ownership of public transport. The Scottish government's decision to award the Scotrail franchise to Abellio, duplicates the errors of Westminster governments, by allowing our publicly funded transport services to create profits for export abroad. RMT's parliamentary group is right to call for an urgent inquiry into this scandal. The SNP boasts “creating and protecting jobs is at the very top of our agenda”. But, as our late, great general secretary Bob Crow always reminded us, 'if you don't own it, you don't control it'. Commercial franchises (whether private, or foreign state-owned) are driven by profit, inevitably leading to job and service cuts. For example, the eight RMT members made redundant by Skytrac Rail Solutions at Edinburgh Waverley station over the recent Xmas period, as a result of a turf war between Scotrail (Abellio) and TPE (First Group). So much for the SNP protecting jobs. Abellio was founded by Dutch Railways (NS) in 2001 precisely to take advantage of EU transport liberalisation. Deutsche Bahn and SNCF established similar commercial subsidiaries to take part in the EU rail privatisation bonanza. The logic of EU privatisation has now taken hold - exactly as the European Commission intended - leading these 'state owned' rail companies to behave as private corporations both here and in their own countries. Building a publicly-owned alternative to privatisation, cuts and job insecurity is a national question, because the kind of public services we want is a democratic issue and the nation is the highest level at which democracy meaningfully exists. RMT recognises this with our long standing policy for renationalisation of our railways. If the SNP, or any political party, wants to rebuild public transport under public ownership, they will have to be prepared to take the keys back from both foreign state- owned and private rail firms alike and tear up the EU's rail privatisation agenda altogether. Yours in solidarity, Alex Gordon RMT Paddington No.1 branch LEARNING SUCCESS IN SCOTLAND LETTERS FOREIGN OWNED TRANSPORT COMPANIES ARE PRIVATISED