PARLIAMENTARY COLUMN

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: june 2015 :: RMTnews Parliamentary column 9 We're faced with five years of a Tory government committed to austerity-heavy! Since 2010 the coalition government were committed to reducing the deficit and cutting public expenditure and claimed this would all be achieved within the lifetime of one parliament. It was not achieved and what we're left with is a deeply unbalanced society, a fall in real wages, and many people on insecure job conditions. One million people rely on food banks and as a country we spend £11bn on in-work benefits, in other words subsidising low wages. Since re-election, the Tories are now proposing a £12 billion cut in welfare spending, stringent anti trade union laws, huge cuts in local government expenditure, and even further removing the role of democratic local government in our education system. They are also attacking our fundamental human rights through the introduction of the British Bill of Rights, and systematically undermining the Equalities Act and further damaging the life opportunities of those with disabilities through massive cuts. Labour lost the election but did increase its vote in England by 1 million but lost in Scotland and overall has been reduced to 232 MPs. In the election campaign Ed Miliband made some very good points on zero hours contacts, students' conditions of work, and access to pre-school education. The problem was that the fundamental Labour message being delivered estimated there would still be cuts in public expenditure to remove the deficit within one parliament. Labour lost votes to UKIP who offered nothing more than a council of despair and a fundamentally anti politic message, and also to some extent the Greens, who did oppose austerity. Following Ed Miliband's resignation as leader, Harriet Harman is standing in but a new election has been called and it's imperative that an alternative to austerity be offered in this leadership debate. I am a trade unionist, a former official of the National Union of Public Employees (now part of Unison) and in Parliament I support many trade union groups including the RMT. I am fully committed to public ownership of the entire rail network, and significant investment in public transport infrastructure as a way of improving our economy and jobs. RMT parliamentary group member Jeremy Corbyn MP explains his challenge for the labour leaderhip • Examine opportunities to reduce labour-only, agency, sub-contract supplier and consultancy costs. • Joint review to create opportunities in our maintenance, operations and controllers teams to enable enhanced efficiency and improvements. • Develop a forum between Network Rail and RMT, TSSA and Unite as appropriate, to examine options for reducing waste from the business to enable further efficiencies to be made. • Creating single 'point care' teams. • Cross boundary working for response teams within Route for incidents and disruption. • Develop technology for placing of detonators and PLBs thus releasing staff for other work. • Train and deploy resident signallers to work adjacent mechanical signal boxes on a voluntary basis for an agreed premium. Final proposals on implementation plans for any agreed changes would be delivered by November 30 2015. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that having considered the latest offer RMT reps had agreed that the pay offer was a significant improvement. “It cannot be understated just how important the massive ballot result and the clear will of RMT members to take industrial action has been to achieving this improved offer. “This proposal will mean members get two years of consolidated pay increases and a two year no compulsory redundancy guarantee. “Considering at the start Network Rail stated members would have to sell off terms and conditions in order to get a pay rise and refused to guarantee no redundancies, it is clear your support for your negotiating team has forced Network Rail to move their position massively,” he said.