Searchable article text
RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: march 2015 :: RMTnews 5 P rotests along the East Coast Main Line marked the final day of its operation in the public sector as the government dumped it back into the laps of the private sector this month. This is despite its financial and performance success as a public service and in the face of two previous, grotesque private failures that took the inter-city route to the brink of collapse. Protests took place at Kings Cross, Edinburgh Waverley and Doncaster. Since 2009, East Coast has returned over £1 billion to the Treasury – paying cash back to the taxpayer while the private companies line their pockets with subsidies and has had record high customer satisfaction ratings. In the public sector East Coast has increased profits with that money being invested directly back into improving services instead of being trousered by private shareholders. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that six years ago the East Coast Main Line collapsed into chaos when National Express threw the keys back because they couldn’t extract enough profit. “That followed an earlier spectacular private sector failure on the line when Sea Containers went bust. “It was left to the public sector to not only rescue this vital North/South rail link from total meltdown but to turn around its performance and to start handing hundreds of millions of pounds back to the taxpayer in contrast to the rip- off private companies. “Now, in an act of gross national betrayal of the British people that will cost us dear, the route is being handed over to Virgin/Stagecoach to be run again solely in the interests of private profit, taking a third gamble after the two previous corporate failures. “This re-privatisation is based on pure, right wing ideology and is an act of industrial vandalism that will smash apart Britain’s most successful rail company for just one reason – it is publicly owned. “RMT has marked this latest scandal on Britain’s privatised railways and the union will renew the fight to return the entire network to public ownership – a policy supported by 70 per cent of the British people,” he said. EAST COAST THROWN TO THE WOLVES