SHAW REPORT “ SMASH AND GRAB”

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: march 2016 :: RMTnews 5 R MT has warned that the Shaw Report on the future of Network Rail leaves the door open FOR Tory Chancellor George Osborne to set up a "smash and grab" raid on some of Britain's last remaining publicly-owned rail assets. Although the Shaw report balked at the idea of full privatisation after a strong union campaign, RMT said that publicly-owned Network Rail assets from stations to power and other parts of the infrastructure, are set up to be knocked out in a fire sale to private speculators leading to further fragmentation. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that although a strong union campaign had fought off the prospect of wholesale and early reprivatisation the Shaw Report still openED the door to a sell- off. “This is the Tories looking to knock down what's left of the family silver as Osborne scrambles to plug the gaping holes in his budget. "Foreign speculators will be queuing up again to plunder Britain's railways for every last penny in the same way as they have mopped up train operations and run them into the ground. “RMT will continue to fight any further attacks on Network Rail and will continue to campaign for public ownership of the entire rail system. “The government is already preparing the sell-off of electrical power assets to global speculators. “The latest moves came hot on the heels of plans to begin the sell-off of £1.8 billion of NR property assets including a whole raft of high-profile railway stations. “The same global energy companies who are currently robbing Britain’s domestic power customers blind are now set to be unleashed on Britain’s railways with dire consequences. “This is all about asset- stripping, fragmentation and profiteering by global companies at the expense of rail services in the UK and where passengers are seen as little more than self-loading freight whose sole function is to generate share-holder profits,” he said. “The Network Rail proposals are a mirror of the train operator franchises that have reduced the bulk of our services to nothing more than a privatised cash-cow designed to underpin rail operations in other parts of Europe and around the globe. “The proliferation of contractors and sub-contractors is already dragging Network Rail’s performance down and the flogging off of the power assets would simply up the ante on the fragmentation that is the root cause of many of the daily problems hitting services. “RMT is in no doubt that the latest NR plans are ideologically driven by the Government and are just the thin end of a long wedge designed to drag the publicly-owned Network Rail operations back to the lethal days of the privatised Railtrack. “RMT will fight this concerted attack on our members and the safety-critical services that they deliver,” he said. SHAW REPORT “SMASH AND GRAB” Union warns Network Rail report leaves the door open to Tory sell-off