PARLIAMENTARY COLUMN

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: november/december 2015 :: RMTnews Parliamentary column 9 The Tories forced the Transport for London Bill through Parliament earlier this month with a three line whip – a rare occurrence for a private bill. This bill is designed to help TfL fill the funding gap arising from impending cuts in the grant it receives from central government, by allowing it to use offshore companies to develop its property. This possibly explains why the government wanted it out of Parliament as it relates to funding and budgets. Leaks show that, from the turn of the decade, the government will cut £700 million a year from its contribution to TfL’s budget. As a result TfL is jumping head first into the worst kind of corporate structures – ie Limited Partnerships. This model is operated via opaque offshore investment vehicles that pay little tax and are magnets for crooks from around the world engaged in stealing money from their own public purses. TfL is pinning all its hopes on filling the gap created by government budget cuts by leasing out land to offshore companies. TfL should not have been put in this position by the government – the organisation is struggling to run a transport network let alone a property portfolio. Their press office spins this as TfL’s contribution to tackling the housing crisis but the union and the Labour front bench says that it is nothing of the kind. Even if Transport for London were to allow the building of giant residential towers above every one of its stations, the cost of housing in the capital will remain unaffordable. While the provision of vital services such as housing continues to be dominated by corporate interests, the chief winners will remain the financiers. With ordinary working people left competing against each to see how much money they can borrow for ever more miniscule and remote dwellings. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that TfL needed to be saved from itself and from a government indifferent to the growing financial crisis facing services in the capital as we saw from the recent transport department funding settlement. “Speculative property gambles benefit global finance capital and opening the door to a barrage of dirty money and the warehousing of residential units that turn whole areas into ghost towns. TfL should have no part of that “TfL needs to be properly funded by government and not encouraged to gamble its financial future and the safe provision of transport services on shady property deals straight out of gangster movies like The Long Good Friday,” he said. The bill will now go back to Report stage and Third Reading where amendments can be considered The union has met with Labour Hammersmith MP Andy Slaughter about the possibility of drawing on a bigger pool Labour MPs to continue opposing this charter for developers to make millions from public property. TORY LONDON PROPERTY GAMBLE Liverpool City and Sheffield City. “Good employment relations are essential for high-quality public services,” it stated. This intervention comes amid mounting opposition to the government’s proposals to place greater restrictions over workers. Every local authority in Scotland is set to ignore the Bill and in Wales, First Minister Carwyn Jones recently pledged to oppose the Bill if it is passed. Even the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, which represents the UK’s employment agencies, is “not convinced that putting agencies and temporary workers into the middle of difficult industrial relations situations is a good idea for agencies, workers or their clients.” The government’s own bureaucracy watchdog, the Regulatory Policy Committee, has described the impact assessments accompanying the draft Bill as “not fit for purpose”, with “little evidence presented of any significant benefits”. WOMEN The worst legislation in the bill is reserved for those working in ‘important’ public services. Workers in these sectors will see the ways they pay union fees stopped. The time they can spend negotiating with employers will be restricted and to go on strike they will have to achieve levels of votes far above the level received by most governments. TUC data reveals that almost three quarters of the union members affected by those most oppressive rules are women. This is because public services are largely made up of women. BIS figures show they make up 67 per cent of public sector workers, 79 per cent of healthcare workers and 72 per cent of education workers. For those women, with strikes made less likely and less powerful, their leverage to prevent unequal pay, discrimination and protect maternity and other rights will be dramatically reduced.