PARLIAMENTARY COLUMN

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: april 2015 :: RMTnews Parliamentary column 9 R MT has warned that the road congestion witnessed at Easter due to railway closures, inflated train ticket prices and a "massive backlog" of maintenance work was set to get worse. An estimated 16 million cars will use the roads, with many forced to drive because of a large programme of work on train lines. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that the real problem was a massive backlog on the rail maintenance and renewals side which leaves engineers trying to squeeze impossible targets into limited windows of opportunity. “That problem has been compounded by cash-led cuts to staffing and schedules which RMT has warned repeatedly would leave services on a knife edge. "The travelling public are paying a heavy price for years of underinvestment, fragmentation and private profiteering while rail demand has surged ahead. “RMT has set out an alternative to this chaos and that has at its core an end to privatisation and fragmentation, an end to the cuts and the diversion of private profits into a massive programme of direct investment under direct public control,” he said. No trains ran from London Euston to Manchester due to major work at Watford. Improvement work on the West Coast line between Crewe and Warrington and between Carlisle and Glasgow also severely restricted services to northern England and Scotland. The Easter holiday also saw no Southeastern train company services running to or from the London stations of Charing Cross, Waterloo East or Cannon Street. Other disrupted areas due to engineering work included parts of Kent, lines running through Reading in Berkshire and some services from Paddington. The experience of RMT members at CityLink should make any politician think twice before denying the need for reforms to company and employment law in this country. Much in the same way that zero hour contracts have been identified as a scandalous source of exploitation, recent Select Committee reports have left no doubt over the need to reform the way workers are treated when the company they work for goes out of business. The report into the disgraceful circumstances around CityLink’s demise produced by the Scottish Affairs and Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committees reveals just how opportunist investment funds like Better Capital can play the system to minimise their losses from the demise of major employers, at the expense of workers, the taxpayer and suppliers. It is crystal clear that City Link took a deliberate decision not to inform employees and contractors of the company’s likely collapse before Christmas last year. It is also the case that insolvency rules, on everything from how and when information is shared with employees, to the order in which creditors are paid out, are heavily biased to benefit private investors, directors and management whilst the workforce lose their jobs and the prospect of an expensive and lengthy court case to receive any compensation. The current system provides perverse incentives to withhold information or to skip proper consultation processes in contravention of the law and at a high cost to workers who lose their livelihoods. It also creates incentives for employers to use cheap, insecure forms of employment, such as zero hours and bogus self- employment, which gives a worker all the responsibilities of an employee but none of their rights or protections. CityLink contractors and RMT reps were deliberately deceived by company executives over the true state of the business. The lack of consultation with trade union reps is particularly galling and the Select Committees report recommends that the Government reform the insolvency process to ensure that workers and trade unions are kept informed of the financial condition of the company from the moment an administration order is under consideration. Whilst some people always lose out from administration, the current system is deeply unjust. Crucially, secured creditors are cushioned from the full impact of an insolvency because the losses are primarily borne by those who work for a company on a self- employed basis, or as contractors or suppliers. The Committee recommends ending this preferential treatment, through placing workers, including those employed by sub contractors and suppliers at the front of the queue of creditors, not private investors. At present, it is in the financial interest of a company to break the law, and ignore the statutory redundancy consultation period, if the fine for doing so is less than the cost of continuing to trade. This typifies the irresponsible and immoral approach to business taken by Better Capital and their ilk which must be reined in by the next government. This whole sorry affair again highlights the threat to workers from bogus self employment and zero hours contracts. Employment law as well as insolvency law must provide effective legal penalties against the use of zero hours contracts and forcing workers into bogus forms of self employment of the sort so blatantly exploited by CityLink. This must never be allowed to happen again. Ian Davidson Labour MP for Glasgow South West TRAVEL CHAOS TO INCREASE LIFTING THE LID ON THE CITYLINK SCANDAL